The Pandemic’s Effects: Sectional Divides in the European Union

• In Event: The EU’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Issue of Democratic Legitimacy

Abstract

The paper discusses the nature of the political process which characterized the EU during the 2020 pandemic. The political process lined up a group of countries of the north (Frugal Four Plus) against those of the south and, thus, the countries of the east (Poland and Hungary) against the previous two sections allied. The division between the Frugal Four Plus and the southern-based coalition emerged regarding three fault lines (the interpretation of the crisis, the governance’s model to deal with it and the resources for going beyond it). A fourth fault line (regarding the legal identity of the EU) opposed both sections to the Polish and Hungarian governments. While the divides emerged into the first three fault lines can be considered internal to the legal and institutional bases of the EU, the fourth divide called into question those very bases. The 2020 EU political process seems to escape from the main interpretations of the EU, raising the necessity to resort to the analytical narrative of multilevel and federal systems.

Author

• Sergio Fabbrini, Luiss Guido Carli