Policy reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic: an overview of political and economic influences across Europe

Abstract The reactions of the respective governments of the European Union both to the sanitary and economic risks of the Covid-19 pandemic varied tremendously. The objective of this paper is to explain the variation in lockdown and economic measures by political and institutional factors. Both the respective restrictive and economic measures throughout the European Union are presented. The first unit of the paper consists of a literature review of political factors (such as institutional structures and capacities, ideology and the effect of upcoming elections) that may have influenced the stringency of the restrictive measures introduced. As no previous study researched the effects of the above factors on the magnitude of economic packages, a regression analysis was conducted to examine if political ideology, democratic freedom and the timely proximity of elections influenced the extent of economic aid. While these factors could not prove to show significant influence on the extent of economic stimulus packages, several possible explanations are provided in order to understand the relative homogeneity of fiscal and monetary intervention in the EU.