Institutional Rebalancing in the Wake of the Covid-19 Pandemic

The chapter engages in a comparison between the Eurozone crisis and the pandemic crisis. The cartography of both crises follows two axes: endogeneity versus exogeneity, and symmetric versus asymmetric effects. It then focuses on the reactions of EU institutions to the pandemic crisis and their articulation with national governments. In the political-economic arena, discussions took place at the highest political level to mitigate the immediate effects of the crisis, trying to anticipate the likely overwhelming effects that would ensue. The chapter points out the different political-economic rationale of the pandemic crisis, since the proactive stance of some of the actors involved (notably the European Central Bank and the European Commission) is consistent with an “events-politics” approach to the crisis. In contrast, hesitations in the European Council are instructive evidence of the fact that divergences between national governments perpetuate the clash between the wealthier, net-EU budget contributor Member States and the poorer, EU budget net-recipient Member States. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the institutional rebalancing of the EU, discussing its impact on European integration, particularly whether this was a missed opportunity for a great leap forward consistent with the complexity of the underlying challenges posed by the pandemic crisis.