Polity maintenance and paradigm change: What Does ‘Next Generation EU’ Teach Us?

The paper answers two research questions: (1) does Next Generation EU constitute a paradigm change in the economic governance of the EU? (2) is paradigm change a condition for EU polity maintenance? The first research question will be answered through a comparative analysis of the institutional mechanisms introduced for dealing with the consequences of the pandemic crisis (the Recovery and Resilience Facility, RRF) and the euro crisis (the European Stability Mechanism, ESM). While the ESM is an example of an unconstrained intergovernmental organization located outside the EU Treaties, the RRF is by contrast an example of a constrained supranational organization located within the EU legal order. Although radically different, the two institutions (and their programmes) constitute a paradigm change vis-à-vis the pre-existent institutional equilibrium. Because the EU constitutes an incomplete contract, it lacks a stable (institutional) equilibrium on which to rely for responding to existential crisis. If that is true, we need to answer the second research question. The paper will discuss whether the change of the governance paradigm might be considered a systemic necessity for the EU, to guarantee its maintenance in times of existential crises. Since the EU governance is the result of ad hoc compromises and contingent pressures, it seems inevitable that it is wavering from one institutional equilibrium to another. If national democracies are maintained through the stability of their governance, the maintenance of the EU seems to be guaranteed by the instability of its governance. The paper thus concludes with some normative considerations on the future of the EU.