The EU's COVID-19 Response: A View from New Intergovernmentalism

This paper views the COVID-19 pandemic through a new intergovernmental lens. Concerns over the EU's legitimacy shaped the EU's institutional choices during this crisis, it argues, but in ways that differed from policy responses to the euro crisis. Firstly, the European Stability Mechanism found itself at the centre of a political backlash more commonly faced by the European Commission in the post-Maastricht period. This did not prevent member states from delegating new tasks to this de novo body in the form of the Pandemic Crisis Support, but it did encourage further institutional innovation in the form of Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). Secondly, SURE And RRF were subject to strict time limits and other forms of intergovernmental oversight which significantly curtailed the European Commission's power and reduced the short-term burden on the EU budget of large-scale financial support to member states. Thirdly, the European Commission's visibility during the pandemic, especially in the form of Ursula von der Leyen's leadership, should not be mistaken for a lack of leadership by the heads of state or government, who demonstrated a capacity for deliberation and consensus-seeking during a particularly fast-moving global crisis.