Thorny Opportunities: Crisis Management and Political Anticipation in the European Union

Over the past two decades, the European Union has been in a state of almost permanent crisis management. The global financial crisis, migration pressures, Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and the Russian war against Ukraine have formed a deeply interconnected polycrisis, challenging the EU’s political cohesion and democratic legitimacy. These crises have fuelled both centrifugal forces, such as the rise of Eurosceptic populism, and centripetal dynamics, including unprecedented steps towards fiscal, health and security integration. This article explores how different crisis scenarios shape these contrasting outcomes and considers how political anticipation can contribute to a more resilient European Union. It starts from the observation that crises intensify feelings of uncertainty, fear and loss of control. Populist actors exploit these emotions by providing simplistic explanations and attributing blame to distant elites or supranational institutions. Such dynamics are particularly pronounced when crises are perceived as asymmetrical and governed through opaque, expert-driven procedures, as was the case during the eurozone crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. Conversely, crises perceived as shared external threats can foster solidarity and legitimise collective European action. Drawing on a comparative analysis of recent crises, the article identifies four key variables that shape political outcomes: the symmetry of impact, the perception of solidarity, the coordination of leadership and the transparency of procedures. The findings support the hypothesis that European integration primarily advances under conditions of shared vulnerability and credible burden-sharing, while anti-European populist mobilisation thrives in contexts marked by perceived injustice and democratic distance. The article's methodological contribution lies in its combination of crisis management and political anticipation as analytical and normative frameworks. Based on an analysis of how past crises were managed, it identifies long-term trends and dynamic interactions between political actors, using these to derive proposals for anticipatory policy-making. Rather than producing deterministic forecasts, it identifies potential future scenarios by linking past crisis experiences with current political, economic, and social trends. This anticipatory perspective facilitates a transition from reactive crisis management to proactive crisis governance. The article demonstrates how the approaches of crisis management and political anticipation can be used to assess future risks to European democracy, such as the normalisation of emergency politics, executive dominance and growing legitimacy gaps. At the same time, it highlights emerging opportunities, such as new fiscal capacities, strengthened solidarity mechanisms and a gradual transformation of the EU’s integration narrative from market efficiency towards protection, sovereignty and resilience. In conclusion, the article argues that crises do not automatically strengthen or weaken the European project. Their long-term impact depends heavily on the above-mentioned variables and how they are considered in the context of anticipatory policy-making. An anticipatory policy at the European level therefore requires effective crisis responses and the ability to collectively interpret future risks and distribute burdens fairly. Under these conditions, Europe’s polycrisis could act as a catalyst for democratic renewal rather than fragmentation.