Governing Europe in times of crisis

The EU is currently facing a “polycrisis” compounded by the war in Ukraine, the energy and inflation crisis, the rise of anti-European populism and new geopolitical tensions among others.[i] The word “crisis” refers not only to a violent shock that leads to a crisis management in the face of exceptional circumstances but also to the idea that crisis situations are periods of transition between two worlds corresponding to a “crisis of authority”.[ii] Against this background, it is possible to draw lessons from past EU crisis management in order to define the conditions for fostering the development of a genuine EU executive power that is clear, efficient, accountable and legitimate, a prerequisite for strengthening the EU’s capacity to respond to current and future crises.

15 years of crises: what lessons for EU governance?

Over the past 15 years, at least three examples seem to confirm the argument that crises are a driving force behind European integration. First, under the pressure of the economic and financial crisis (2010-2015), the eurozone was strengthened with the creation of a new financial assistance mechanism – the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) – reinforced common fiscal rules and a banking union (even if this has not yet been completed).[iii] Second, Brexit didn’t lead to the disintegration of the EU; on the contrary, it enhanced the Union’s cohesion as shown by the fact that Europhobic political parties no longer defend an “Exit” option.[iv] Third, the most fundamental EU decision during the pandemic was the adoption of the European recovery plan (NextGenerationEU – NGEU). The creation of a common debt has fundamental implications in terms of sovereignty and solidarity. Even if it is temporary, we may expect such a common response to future crises of the same nature. Jean Monnet’s assertion that “Europe will be made in crises and it will be the sum of the responses to these crises”[v] seems justified, even if this argument cannot be applied to all crises, as the refugees’ crisis in particular shows.

Crises can have positive effects for Europe because of the exceptional political implication they require at the highest level, i.e. from national heads of states and government, who have the ultimate legitimacy to make strategic decisions and find compromises on “sovereign” issues. The key role played by the European Council in dealing with crises is obvious.[vi] However, the primacy of national governments in shaping EU crisis responses has also negative implications: difficulty for the EU to speak with a single voice and a time for diplomatic negotiations within the European Council which can be too slow; this creates uncertainty which can have a political and/or economic cost. A collective executive power, which in practice is fragmented, is not optimal to achieve efficiency. Nevertheless, the EU seems to have learnt the lessons from the past and has increased the speed of reaction to recent crises. During the Pandemic, with the adoption of NGEU, and in response to the war in Ukraine with the adoption of unprecedented economic and political sanctions and the provision of political, humanitarian, economic and military support for Ukraine. Without any doubt, it is in this last area that the EU has been most innovative.[vii]

While undeniable progress has been made in terms of efficiency, the question of the legitimacy of the EU crisis management must also be raised.[viii] Over the last 15 years, the decisions made in response to crises were only taken, both at the national and European levels, in a state of emergency and under the pressure of this exceptional context. Constraint and necessity have a significant cost, not only economic – as shown by the euro area crisis- but also political – as it reduces the scope for political choice. Moreover, there is no opportunity for a transparent debate on the EU decisions taken in response to crises even if they often challenge strong national consensus in areas such as fiscal policy, defense or migration.[ix] Last but not least, crises show the complexity of the EU political system and its cost in terms of legitimacy and accountability. The fragmentation of the European executive power leads to a dilution of democratic accountability. To what extent does the addition of 27 national democratic legitimacies and 27 national political mandates produce a European democratic legitimacy and political mandate?

How should the EU governance be designed to deal with future crises?

The examples cited above have highlighted the structural institutional weaknesses of the EU in managing crisis situations: in terms of forward-thinking, preparation and decision-making but also in the implementation of the solidarity principle which must be strengthened ahead of future crises. Moreover, it is necessary to define a medium/long-term strategy stipulating the conditions and concrete steps to develop an effective and accountable European executive power within the framework of a clear system of checks and balances.

In the short term, the example of the “Barnier’s method” during the Brexit negotiations highlights the conditions for effective and legitimate governance in response to crises:[x] an executive delegation of the Council; a mandate defined by Member States on the basis of which the chief negotiator for the EU Commission was able to defend a unified position in the name of Europeans’ common interest. It would appear that this model, which is very close to the method used in trade policy, works better than others. Such a method could be applied to other crises than Brexit.

In the medium-long term, we need a EU genuine executive power that is clear and democratically accountable.[xi] Many recommendations could be developed here, but it seems useful to focus on four proposals:

1. Consolidating the Spitzenkandidaten system to elect the President of the Commission; this practice is useful from both a legitimacy and efficiency perspective;  it is to be hoped that the European Council no longer contests the Spitzenkandidaten system, and that its members will take the practice seriously in 2024.
2. Merging the posts of President of the Commission and President of the European Council. Such a merge would have several advantages: avoid a rivalry that is potentially damaging to the efficiency and legitimacy of the EU’s action; enable the EU to speak with a single voice; give a major political role to the President of the Commission, who would thus combine community and intergovernmental legitimacies and be politically accountable to the European Parliament.
3. Reforming the European Parliament’s electoral system with the introduction of a number of transnational MEPs. The presence of these MEPs could nurture a more European debate and electoral campaign. They could even play a role in consolidating the selection process for the Commission President. It would therefore be possible to establish a more direct link between the nomination of Spitzenkandidaten and voters’ political choice.
4. Governing the EU via a European mandate agreement. The Commission’s legitimacy and the EU’s efficacy could be reinforced by the introduction of a legislative agreement[xii] between Commission and Parliament, but also and above all on the basis of a mandate agreement between the European Parliament, the Commission and the European Council. Such an inter-institutional mandate contract would provide clearer political direction and operational content for EU citizens. It would be drawn up on the power balance reflected in the composition of European parliament and Council.

Towards a “European government”

Crises are a major political challenge for the EU. In the short term, European leaders must agree on practical steps to develop a real European capacity for crisis management – in terms of forward-thinking, risk identification, preparation, decision-making and the implementation of decisions made – in response to the criticism relating to its executive deficit, as well as to show that the EU is capable of dealing with unexpected circumstances. In the medium term, a political strategy aimed to foster the development and reinforcement of a clear and accountable political leadership at the EU level is also essential. This requires a combination of political leadership, decision-making capacity and democratic accountability. In the absence of this, Euroscepticism may grow as the EU will not enjoy sufficient decision-making capacity to tackle crises. This may result into many Europeans withdrawing into their sense of national belonging, feeling as if the national level alone guarantees their political rights and restores a sovereign decision-making capacity to deal with exceptional circumstances.

Link to the article on Regroup website

[i] This article summarises a contribution to the REGROUP webinar on “Governing Europe in times of crisis”, held on 5 June 2023. The author would like to thank Eulalia Rubio for helpful comments on a first version of the text.

[ii] H. Arendt, Between Past and Future, Viking Press, 1961; A. Gramsci, Cahiers de prison (French translation), Gallimard, 1983.

[iii] See F. Fabbrini, Economic Governance in Europe: Comparative Paradoxes and Constitutional Challenges, Oxford University Press, 2016.

[iv] T. Chopin and C. Lequesne, “Disintegration Reversed: Brexit and the Cohesiveness of the 27”, Journal of Contemporary European Studies 29, 3, 2021: 419-431.

[v] J. Monnet, Memoirs, Collins, 1978.

[vi] L. Van Middelaar, Alarums and Excursions: Improvising politics on the European stage, Agenda Publishing, 2019.

[vii] E.g. the delivery of arms financed by the European Peace Facility; the launch of a military assistance mission (EUMAM) to help Ukraine by training 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers before the end of 2023; and, as part of the “Strategic Compass”, the objective of creating an “EU Rapid Deployment Capability” by 2025.

[viii] J. White, Politics of Last Resort: Governing by Emergency in the European Union, Oxford University Press, 2019.

[ix] It could be objected that national parliaments and the European Parliament are “deliberative” institutions, and that debates present a major difficulty in times of crisis: they take a long time and are an obstacle for quick decision-making. In practical terms, this explains why, for the last three years, the Article 122 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU has been used to take decisions for dealing with crises without the agreement of the European Parliament.

[x] See T. Chopin, N. Koenig, and S. Maillard, “The EU facing the coronavirus, a political urgency to embody European solidarity”, Policy paper no. 250, Jacques Delors Institute, April 2020.

[xi] Some of the following developments were initially presented in T. Chopin, “European Union governance in response to crises. What are the conditions for effective and legitimate European political leadership?”, Policy paper, Jacques Delors Institute, June 2021.

[xii] See P. Lamy, G. Pons, and C. Verger, “European elections: promoting a coalition agreement between four political families”, Policy paper n°240, Jacques Delors Institute, 6 June 2019 –