The EU Discourse in Times of Crises: Communicating Legitimacy and Unity

• In Event: European Crises and Crisis Management

Abstract

The recent pandemic has challenged the EU and its legitimacy. Indeed, the European leaders had to quickly react and make decisions that were not always considered effective or democratic by its member states and their citizens. The pandemic was not the only crisis to jeopardize European integration. Over the past fifteen years, the EU has faced economic, political and institutional crises during which the idea of EU dis-integration crept back into polarizing and nationalist discourses, thereby dividing nations and preventing the EU to reconnect with its citizens. Public communication, provided it is used properly, is a key tool to reconstruct political legitimacy and imagine new ways of engaging with citizenry. Building on an original and extensive corpus, this paper discusses the EU’s public communication to legitimize decisions and policies, and to foster unity among its member states and citizens in times of crises. Drawing from interdisciplinary inputs, the paper develops a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the argumentative strategies used by the EU institutions to (re)build legitimacy, counter threats of dis-integration, and foster a sense of unity during four crises: the Eurozone, Brexit, rule-of-law, and Covid-19 crises. By unveiling current practices and dynamics in the EU’s crisis discourse, this study offers innovative insights on how the EU can rethink its legitimacy and accountability to the citizens in order to create new opportunities for European integration, which is crucial to sustainably improve the EU’s responses to challenges in the post-pandemic era.

Author

• Annie Niessen, University of Liege