Regulating for transboundary crises in the EU: varieties of multi-level crisis management in environmental and infrastructure crisis management 


Much has been said about the growing crisis management competencies of the European Union. Similarly, much attention has been paid to contemporary high-salience crises. However, less is known about how coordination across member states is coordinated in areas of potential crisis which are less salient and where any impact is likely to only affect some member states rather than others. This paper adds to the literature by focusing on the dynamics of ex ante regulation for transboundary crisis management across EU member states. For transboundary crisis management to be effective, EU member states need to align and coordinate before crisis. Ex-ante policy coordination through the regulation of member states (transboundary) crisis management policies is an essential yet overlooked mechanism, especially in domains in which member states, rather than the EU have the primary competence for responding to crises. To highlight the dynamics that lead to a non-hierarchical model of multi-level crisis management, this paper compares two contrasting cases related to environment and infrastructure: electricity preparedness and invasive alien species. These crises have different temporalities, visibility, modalities, and various responsibilities for member states. Yet, in both sectors a regulatory regime has been adopted during the last decade to coordinate and regulate crisis management policies.