The European Council’s Role in the Context of EU Crisis-Management

Prior to any important integration or disintegration step, the (unanimous) voice of the European Council needs to be heard. Similarly, whenever the EU faces a crisis, the spotlight is turned on the European Council. This is particularly the case when the EU needs to provide financial assistance to its member states (MS). At the time of the euro crisis, measures like the Six Pack, the Two Pack or the Fiscal Compact were first agreed within the European Council. The same holds true for the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). Last year, a 4-day summit of the European Council was needed for Next Generation EU (NGEU). This paper investigates how and why the influence of the European Council on the EU’s crisis management has changed. To do so, the paper compares the euro crisis with the COVID-19 pandemic. Analytically, it distinguishes between three steps of the policy cycle and tries to understand the role of the European Council in each of them: which crisis measures have been proposed (agenda-setting), which ones have (not) been adopted (decision-making) and which one have been put into practice (implementation)? The underlying aim is to detect to which extent (if any) the European Council has lost its centrality in the policy cycle of the EU’s crisis management. Which explanatory factors account for that? The analysis covers both the regulatory and the spending policies of the EU during the two crises. This research question is important because – unlike the intergovernmental pre-eminence during the euro crisis – the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an empowerment of the European Commission. The paper’s findings thus measure and explain a possible paradigm shift in institutional terms from the euro crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic – an issue which is key to the future governance of the EU.