Can we trust them? Studying the role of trust in economic and fiscal governance during the euro and the COVID-19 crisis

In the COVID-19 crisis, the Commission could determine the landing zone for the intergovernmental negotiations on NextGenerationEU. This influential role of the supranational actor contrasts the situation during the euro crisis when policy decisions were mainly prepared in intergovernmental formats. So far, few contributions have focused on explaining this well-documented shift of political influence in the machine room of EU governance during economic and fiscal crises. This paper highlights the role of institutional and interpersonal trust. Combining rationalist and identity-based approaches, it assumes that elites can generate mutual trust through positive evaluations of performances and intensive interaction. This operationalisation is used to compare the trust of member state governments in the Commission and its effects on institutional dynamics during the euro and the COVID-19 crisis. Findings indicate a parallel dynamic of trust attribution and interinstitutional distributions of power. During the euro crisis, the beginning politicisation of the Commission’s leadership made member state governments doubtful of its motives and political preferences. Therefore, they preferred to keep processes of policy design and consensus-building among state secretaries and ministers. During the COVID-19 crisis, the Commission were more trusted among member state governments. Frameworks of economic and fiscal coordination, such as the European Semester, helped to build trustful relationships among relevant bureaucrats at the national and supranational levels. Furthermore, von der Leyen pursued a more cooperative leadership style, framing the Commission as an ally of the member states in their search for a consensual economic recovery mechanism rather than highlighting its political ambitions. This paper makes conceptual and empirical contributions to the study of trust as a significant factor in interinstitutional dynamics during EU crises.