Evaluating the European Union's role during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The unprecedented impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic shall be remembered as how it managed to hijack the entire world. This disease impacted citizens’ lives and compelled governments to take extraordinary measures to prevent death and a collapse to their entire system of governance. Since the birth of the European Community (EC), several academics have noted how times of profound crises “pave the way for analysing what remains the same and what is changing as a result of these shocks.” Throughout the emergence of the EU, periods of crisis have formed part of the EU’s lexicon, where they served as a propeller to deepen the European integration process. This dissertation acknowledges that Covid-19 was unlike any other crisis; it is symmetric; impacting all member states, multifaceted and multidimensional; compelling all member states and EU institutions to find solutions towards several impacted policy areas. Undeniably, the Pandemic’s repercussions instigated an economic and border crisis, a struggle the EU faced several times during the past decades. However, at its core, Covid-19 is an immense health crisis, a battle somewhat new for the European institutions. In some policy areas, the Pandemic highlighted considerable vulnerabilities within the EU’s framework, compelling the EU to overcome or question problems that were long overdue. This study focuses on the first two pandemic waves, as their timeline show that notable EU institutions and agencies took ambitious steps to strengthen their capabilities. Unlike previous crises, these EU actors have, at times, assumed a more assertive role than the European Council or certain influential member states. Overall, the findings in this dissertation show that the Covid-19 Pandemic is a critical juncture for the EU that has granted a window of opportunity for policy learning and a space for the deepening of European integration.