The EU

Abstract

Since the European Union (EU) has limited crisis management capacities, its decision-making processes highly depend on cooperation between its 27 member states. Crises provide opportunities for the EU to extent its competences. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the European Commission (EC) was late in responding and failed to prevent fragmented national responses. The EU’s activities in crisis management increased and became more decisive in March 2020 and, since then, they have been mainly related to the internal market and economic recovery as well as to coordinating health and research. In its crisis communication, the EC used a managerial framing by informing on crisis interventions and their costs, combined rhetoric of apologia with calls for solidarity and cooperation and promoted a renewal discourse by framing the crisis as an opportunity for modernisation and the emergence of a new powerful Europe. This frame of hope, however, was contrasted by controversy between member states in the European Council about the financing of recovery strategies. Even though the EU has thus failed to demonstrate unity in face of the crisis, negotiations between the member states resulted in an extension of the EC’s fiscal competences. © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Darren Lilleker, Ioana A. Coman, Milos Gregor and Edoardo Novelli.