The European Union - A New Supranational Legislative Agenda in Times of Permanent Crisis?

The European Union has over time been the location of a great number of events understood, narrated to and responded to as crises. Over time, the scale and number of such crises has increased and the phenomenon of the polycrisis has emerged and been recognised. The response of the EU to crises has also evolved. This paper thus seeks to consider the reactions of the EU to crises, have been, to reflect on any evolution in its approach and to consider its implications for the EU both as a legislator itself and as an agenda-setter for national parliaments. In terms of what may be regarded as its constitutional rules regarding crises, the traditional concept of a state of emergency has never had any application to the European Union. However, there are a number of provisions in the Treaties of potential significance in crisis or emergency situations - both the (somewhat sporadic) provisions directed specifically at some such situations and more general legal bases. These Treaty provisions are first looked at, as is the wide variation in responses, that have characterised the EU’s actions in practice in crisis situations. Trends of particular interest that have emerged over time have included interventions in areas normally linked to national policies, changes in political paradigms associated with the EU, institutional developments of various kinds and latterly (and perhaps most crucially in analysing the impact of crises in the European Union in terms of the both the national and supranational legislative agenda) the advent of a more organised and comprehensive ‘resilience’ approach to dealing with crises, with one significant example of this approach having been the adoption of the Internal Market and Resilience Act (IMERA).