The coronavirus and crisis responses in the European Union

The coronavirus has put the European Union (EU) under profound stress. It forms a ‘perfect storm’ of conditions that makes it a crucial moment in European integration. The first phase was characterized by a striking and puzzling lack of coordinated action by the EU: Despite being a deeply integrated supranational union, it responded as a loosely coordinated dis-union. Although the EU does not enjoy regulatory competences in health policy, the crisis has directly and indirectly affected a wide number of policy areas where the EU enjoys exclusive or shared competences. This paper argues that the EU tends to muddle through crisis and that this is likely to be the long-term outcome also of the Corona-crisis. In developing this argument, the paper makes two contributions: It firstly outlines three conceptual models of crisis response strategies, and secondly probes empirically how the EU has responded to past crises and to the Corona-crisis. Rather than breaking up, the EU has previously proved resilient to crises owing to its ability to adapt and absorb, and if necessary, change through muddling-through processes, driven by mechanisms such as path dependencies, functional spill over and failing forward. Our analysis indicates that these mechanisms are at play in the EU´s policy and institutional responses to the corona-crisis and that its strategies are influenced by past choices. The paper argues that a challenge facing public organizations in crisis is whether to stabilize or change, or to combine stability and change. Limits to organizational design, however, often prevent carefully crafted responses.