The Pandemic Crisis and the European Union

COVID-19 and Crisis Management

Paulo Vila Maior, Isabel Camisão

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000470932
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book assesses the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for the European Union (EU), as well as its response in dealing with an overarching, multidimensional crisis with consequences extending beyond public health safety to political, economic, legal, and institutional arenas.

It argues the pandemic represents a symmetric crisis cutting across countries with different social, economic and political characteristics and which yet - despite favouring cooperative solutions at the supranational level - has largely been met with initial responses of a national, even local, nature. So, how well did the EU perform as a crisis manager in the pandemic crisis?

This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and readers of crisis, pandemic and health management, European Union politics and governance.

1A crisis beyond the crisis

DOI: 10.4324/9781003153900-2

1.1 Introduction

The process of European integration has been marked by many crises. However, the ongoing pandemic crisis has some particularities that set it apart from previous crises. This singularity, we argue, could have an impact on the processes of response to the crisis and policy change. Chapter 1 unveils the theoretical framework of the book. Section 1.2 builds on the burgeoning literature on crisis to reflect on the relation between crisis and reform and introduces the theoretical rationale for assessing change, based on an adaptation of the model proposed by Streeck and Thelen (2005). Section 1.3 draws a comparison between two previous crises (Eurozone and migration crises) and the pandemic crisis. Section 1.4 shows that a key dissimilarity is the symmetry of the pandemic crisis, as opposed to the asymmetric nature of the previous ones. The main argument of the chapter hence rests on the idea that this symmetry enhances the ground for a response at the level of the EU, at least from a theoretical point of view. Since Chapter 1 only dwells on the theoretical considerations that underpin our methodology, the purpose of the next chapters of the book is to test the theoretical framework we propose here against the imprints of reality on the multiple dimensions of the crisis that deserve careful analysis.

1.2 Crisis and reform: paths of continuity and discontinuity

Crisis is part of the EU lexicon almost from the beginning and, in fact, the idea that crises could act as a propelling force to the process of European integration, embodied in the well-known line attributed to Jean Monnet (1978),¹ is largely accepted as evidence in the EU literature. Arguably, Monnet’s sentence is aligned with the historical institutionalist approach that maintains that a crisis could represent a ‘critical juncture’² (Collier and Collier, 1991; 2002; Capoccia and Kelemen, 2007; Capoccia, 2015), that is, an exceptional (and brief) phase of institutional flux during which more significant change is possible (Capoccia and Kelemen, 2007, p. 341). Even though generally historical institutionalists devote most of their attention to continuity and equilibrium, rather than to change, some works, notably macrohistorical analyses that focus on the development of polities, acknowledge the fact that institutional trajectories could deviate during critical junctures (Capoccia and Kelemen, 2007, p. 342). Critical junctures are therefore

moments in which uncertainty as to the future of an institutional arrangement allows for political agency and choice to play a decisive causal role in setting an institution on a certain path of development, a path that then persists over a long period of time.

(Capoccia, 2015, pp. 2–3)

Indeed, by representing a phase of disorder in the normal functioning of a system – one that entails the perception of a threat to the fundamental values and basic structures of a system, profound uncertainty and a sense of urgency in the response (Boin et al., 2005; Boin, ‘t Hart and Kuipers, 2017) – a crisis frequently exposes the insufficiencies of the system, not only to deal with unexpected challenges, but also to operate at the best of its capabilities. In a nutshell, a crisis could lead to a transformation in an otherwise stable and resistant to change institutional and policy path. Confirming this line of reasoning, the literature on policy reform and organisational change has shown that crises generate a window of opportunity for reforming institutional structures and long-standing policies (Kingdon, 2003; Cortell and Peterson, 1999). Arguably, the so-called crisis-reform thesis (Boin and ‘t Hart, 2000) adds a positive dimension to an obvious negative and disruptive one, as it considers that, by triggering a process of deinstitutionalisation, crises may open the door to a long-needed institutional renewal, which would be extremely difficult in normal times:

[t]he way policy decisions are made, the ranking of policy goals, the daily routines and patterns of authority – all these institutionalised features of public administration and the policy process became subject to discussion.

(Boin and ‘t Hart, 2000, p. 12)

However, the degree and nature of this transformation might vary significantly, ranging from ‘restoring order’ (a conservative approach) to revitalisation and institutional redesign (a reformist approach). Whereas the later aims to rebalance or to redesign the institutional features of the policy sector in order to adapt them to the new environment, the former aims to maintain the institutional essence (Boin and ‘t Hart, 2000, p. 21). Although in theory both conservative and reformist approaches have fairly similar chances of succeeding or failing, the literature on crisis management has highlighted that overcoming the many existing barriers to institutional change in policymaking is far from being an easy task (Boin and ‘t Hart, 2000; 2003). This might explain why so often crisis leaders choose to defend (rather than to reform) the existing institutions and policies. It might also shed light on a fairly conservative structure of polities and of the political process: even faced with a critical juncture, where the window of opportunity to change is open, institutions and policies are not changed.

At this point, it is worth noting that although a crisis could unfold a substantial reform of the system that is disrupted by it, this reform does not necessarily occur. Trying to make sense of very different outcomes, when it comes to change, emerging from events that have been classified as crisis, Boin, ‘t Hart and McConnel (2009) advanced a possible explanation based on a crisis exploitation model.³ For them, actors who seek to exploit the crisis-induced opportunity space (to strengthen their positions, to attract or deflect public attention, to reform old policies or to create new ones) get involved in frame contests concerning the nature and severity of the crisis, who is to blame and the right path to the future. The goal is to have their frame accepted as the dominant ‘crisis narrative’, which in turn could help to push for non-incremental changes in policy fields otherwise very resistant to change (Boin, ‘t Hart and McConnell, 2009, p. 4).

On the topic of institutional change, and more specifically on the question of the type of change that might occur, Streeck and Thelen (2005) warned for the limits of models of change that compartmentalise institutional stability and institutional change and ignore the capacity of endogenous factors for triggering a significant transformation. Far-reaching change is not always the result of abrupt and exogenous factors, but can also be the result of the accumulation of small, frequently seemingly insignificant adjustments (Streeck and Thelen, 2005, p. 8). The authors propose an operative model that distinguishes between processes of change, which can be incremental or abrupt, and results of change, which might amount to either continuity or discontinuity (see Table 1.1). The main argument is that historical breakpoints do not necessarily lead to discontinuity, as often there is an urge to survive and return (to the status quo) and that in fact transformative change (in the model referred as ‘gradual transformation’, which is also a type of discontinuity) could result from incremental, creeping change (Streeck and Thelen, 2005). Arguably, the first claim is in line with the conservative approach, which asserts that more frequently than probably expected (considering the mainstream crisis-reform thesis) leaders are more eager to return to the ‘certainty’ of the pre-crisis situation than to take a leap of faith to the ‘uncertainty’ of a radically new policy or institutional design.

Table 1.1 Streeck and Thelen (2005) model of change

				Results of change
				Continuity		Discontinuity
Processes of change		Incremental		Reproduction by adaptation		Gradual transformation
		Abrupt		Survival and return		Breakdown and replacement
Source: Reproduced from Streeck and Thelen (2005, p. 9).

Turning now our attention to the EU’s specific case, a quick overview of the history of European integration shows that several crises (that occurred inside and outside EU’s borders) have triggered important opportunities for developments in the institutional architecture, in the decision-making procedures and in the expansion of the overall areas of competence of the EU. However, as regards the results of change, although frequently the proposals point to the ‘breakdown and replacement’ result, the actual outcome is more in line with the ‘gradual transformation’ hypothesis. Put it differently, although generally crisis have clearly signalled the need for a (deep) reform of the EU policies and procedures, not every crisis has led to a significant or rapid deepening of the European project. Actually, some crises even marked a setback or at least a stalemate in the integration process, as was the case of the so-called empty chair crisis (1965) or the Constitutional Treaty crisis (2005).

That being said, some EU supranational institutions, particularly the European Commission (henceforth Commission), have been keen in grasping the opportunity opened by crisis events to push forward the integration process, issuing proposals that often aim for a ‘break and replacement’ type of change. Even though this ‘purposeful o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: COVID-19 and the European Union – is this time really for bad?
• 1 A crisis beyond the crisis
• 2 Political and institutional analysis of the crisis
• 3 An economic analysis of the pandemic crisis
• 4 Security or securitisation: Border controls as a setback for European integration?
• 5 Humanitarian emergency and the European Union: Solidarity, leadership and national reassurance
• 6 Constitutionalising the state of exception: Implications for citizenship
• Conclusion: The EU as a crisis manager in the pandemic – good but not great
• Index