The United European Response on Covid-19

Home , Intergovernmentalism, Neofunctionalism

The united European response on

Covid-19 A qualitative analysis on the integrative process in the EU health policy as a response of the pandemic crisis.

Author: Victor Videgren Supervisor: Brigitte Pircher

Term: HT20 Subject: Political Science Level: Master Thesis

Course code: 5SK30E

Victor Videgren 5SK30E

Abstract The European emergence of Covid-19 has come to characterise a new kind of enemy for the EU, a cross border health threat which knows no borders and affect the EU’s health, economic, social and transport sectors indiscriminately. Therefore this thesis aims to explores the measures taken by the EU to respond to the outbreak of Covid-19. By using three European integration theories, neofunctionalism and liberal and new intergovernmentalism, different aspects behind the EU’s crisis response can be analysed and later put into evaluation in relation to the European integration project. It is found that, while facing initial challenges in solidarity, the EU has managed to present significant responses toward the pandemic. These are mostly based in the economic arena through the NGEU and the MFF for 2021-2027. Still, there are significant measures presented to enhance the capabilities of the EU’s current health framework, under the new EU4health-programme.

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Table of contents

1 Introduction 1 1.1 Research purpose and research questions 2 1.2 Delimitations 3 1.3 Disposition 3 2 Theoretical framework 4 2.1 European integration theory 4 2.2 Neofunctionalism 6 2.3 Intergovernmentalism, liberal and new 9 2.4 Integration theories in crises 14 2.5 The neofunctionalist perspective in previous crises 15 2.6 The liberal and new intergovernmentalist framework in previous crises 19 3 Methodological framework 22 3.1 Case study 23 3.2 Material 24 3.3 Data analysis strategy 26 3.4 Methodological discussion 27 3.5 Analytical framework 28 3.5.1 Operationalisation of European integration 28 3.5.2 Operationalization of European integration theories 28 4 Analysis 33 4.1 Background to the virus and the initial outbreak 33 4.1.1 The European emergence of Covid-19 and the initial responses 33 4.2 Resilience building within the Union 39 4.2.1 The Eurogroup package 39 4.2.2 The multiannual financial framework 42 4.3 The EU’s way toward a Health Union 50 4.3.1 Strengthening the EU’s health framework 50 4.3.2 Vaccine development 54 4.4 Discussion 55 5 Conclusions 64 6 Bibliography 68

Victor Videgren 5SK30E

List of Abbreviations

BARDA - Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority BDI - Federation of German Industries CJEU - Court of Justice of the European Union The Council - the Council of the European Union CRII - Corona Response Investment Instrument CPM - Civil Protection Mechanism EAA - European Economic Area ECB - European Central Bank ECBG - the European Border and Coast Guard ECCL - Enhanced Conditions Credit Line ECDC - European Centre for Disease Control ECRE - European Council on Refugees and Exiles EFSM - European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism ESM - European Stability Mechanism EMA - Europe Medical Agency EMU - Europe Monetary Union EP - European Parliament ESI - European Support Instrument EU - European Union HERA - Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority HSC - Health and Security Committee JHA - Justice- and Home Affairs Council MFF - Multiannual Financial Framework NGEU - Next Generation EU Victor Videgren 5SK30E

PCSL - Pandemic Crisis Support Line of credit PPE - Personal Protective Equipment SCIFA - Strategic Committee on Immigration, Frontiers and Asylum SURE - Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency TFEU - The Functioning of the European Union WHO - World Health Organisation Victor Videgren 5SK30E

1 Introduction

In the near end of 2019, the world observed with caution the sudden outbreak of a novel coronavirus, later titled Covid-19, which began to spread throughout China. On the 24th January, the first case had been reported within the European continent in France and shortly after, the virus had spread to every corner of Europe. Since then, as disclosed by the European Centre of Disease Control (ECDC) on the 16th September 2020, over 4.3 million cases have been reported and over 200 000 deceased in Europe. Concurrently, the spreading virus has brought vast impacts on the majority of the European Economic Area (EAA), with forecasts suggesting sharp GDP contractions, mass unemployment and an output level lower at the end of 2021, than 2019 (European Commission, 2020a).

Compelled to take action, the European Union (EU) has announced that the management of the outbreak of Covid-19 to become the utmost priority the political agenda of the EU institutions and its agencies. The European Council Presidency’s decision to mobilize the Integrated Political Response Mechanism (IPCR) has been managed at the highest political level. The IPCR is an initiative that opened up for the facilitation of joint cooperation and decision-making between the European Council, other EU institutions and agencies as well as member state representatives (De Miguel Beriain, Atienca Macías and José Armaza Armaza, 2015; European Council, 2020a). The focal points of the EU’s crisis response have revolved around four overarching strategic goals that should serve as guidance for the EU management of Covid-19: 1) limiting the spread of the virus, 2) ensuring the provision of medical equipment, 3) promoting research for treatments and vaccines 4) supporting jobs, businesses and the economy. It is with these goals in mind that any initiatives or taken actions are coordinated. The

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European institutions and agencies are given responsibilities execute actions which relate to each of these goals (European Council, 2020b).

Nevertheless, the EU today does not have primary responsibility of organising, coordinating or providing health services and medical care to its member states. Rather the Union serves to complement the national policies of the member states as declared by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), Article 168. Meanwhile, as brought forward by a 2020 survey commissioned by the European Parliament, nearly 70% of the participants would like the EU to be able to manage situations such as the Covid-19 crisis more adequately (Uncertainty/EU/Hope Public opinion in times of Covid-19, 2020). This paired with a growing political landscape of Euroscepticism puts further pressure on the EU’s level of legitimacy and assertiveness as well as a Union and united actor against the Covid-19 crisis (Celi, Guarascio, Simonazzi, 2020)

The European Union’s history is characterised by crises. Since the turn of the century, the EU has met immense challenges with events such as the financial downturn of 2008 and the ensuing Eurozone crisis, the migration crisis in 2015 and the recent debate around the United Kingdom exiting the after its referendum in June 2016 (Hobolt, 2016). These remarkable circumstances are usually at the core of an integrative shift within the Union’s responsibilities, policies and powers, and have been the subject of scholarly debates. In the same way, the discussion arises in whether the Union can mantle the growing expectations and overcome the Covid-19 crisis.

1.1 Research purpose and research questions This thesis aims to explore the response of the European Union on the sudden outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020. Therefore, it focuses on the efforts and measures taken by the European Commission, The Council of the European

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Union and the European Council in order to mitigate and overcome the Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, this research aims to provide clarity on whether the responsive measures have influenced the integration process of the European Union, and in which way. The following research questions have been formulated in order to guide the research:

What measures has the EU taken to respond to the outbreak of Covid-19?

Which measures were taken by the EU within the field of health policy to respond to the outbreak of Covid-19?

Has any of these measures affected the prospect of future deepening the European integration project?

1.2 Delimitations In order to keep the extent of the thesis within reasonable limits, following demarcations are made. First and foremost, the research on will be conducted on responses made by the EU between January and November 2020. Furthermore, the thesis will not consider the EU’s international role to combat the Covid-19, but will rather be specified to that within the Union. Third and finally, in the investigation of supranational institutions, the research will only consider to the European Commission as a way of narrowing the scope of the thesis.

1.3 Disposition From here on the thesis will be organised as follows. The next section constitutes the theoretical framework of the thesis, where neofunctionalism and liberal and new intergovernmentalism are presented. Following is the methodological chapter which outline the chosen methodological approaches for the research. After that is a presentation of the empirical material followed by an analytical discussion on the material. In the last section the conclusions drawn from the analysis are given.

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2 Theoretical framework

Within this section the theoretical framework is presented. It begins with a brief presentation of what European integration theory is. That is then followed by the three chosen approaches for the research, namely neofunctionalism and liberal and new intergovernmentalism. Finally, previous research on neofunctionalism and liberal and new intergovernmentalism is presented and discussed respectively.

2.1 European integration theory European integration refers to the process where European Union member states decide to shift their national competence toward EU-level competence. The study, and theorization, of integration then revolves around the aim to describe the underpinning dynamics that drive these integrational processes and outcomes. Efforts, which in extension not only provide knowledge in the present state of the political landscape, but also in the articulation of assumptions on the development and the behaviour of institutions in the future. Ever since the study of integration theory began to develop shortly after the end of the Second World War, the ideas, models and theories on how and why these processes and outcomes should be explained have been many. However, out of these, two theories have been more dominant than others - Neofunctionalism and Liberal Intergovernmentalism (Wiener and Diez, 2009).

As a way of evaluating the integrative process taking place in Europe during the Covid-19 crisis, this research will make use of these traditional approaches. Both have been used several times by scholars seeking to investigate the impact that other critical events, such as the Euro- or the refugee crisis, have had on the EU and its continued development (see Rosamond, 2000; Hooghe and Marks, 2019; Schimmelfennig and Winzen 2019). Neofunctionalism will in this case be used to assert indications of

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desired European integration arising due to the interdependency between sectors. It will also be used to uncover integrative advancements spurred by national elites, transnational organisations or the supranational entities themselves. On the other hand liberal intergovernmentalism will be useful in the exploration of member state’s account in the decision-making process around the measures taken against the corona virus.

One fairly recent development of the liberal intergovernmental understanding – the new intergovernmentalism (Bickerton et al, 2015), will also be integrated. Therefore , the new intergovernmentalist framework by Bickerton et al (2015) published in ”The New Intergovernmentalism: States and Supranational Actors in the Post-Maastricht Era” will serve as basis and further nuance in the analysis of the material, with the prospect of uncovering patterns related to the “integrative paradox”, where integration can be moved to EU-level but not necessarily toward supranational institutions.

Like Hooghe and Marks (2019) reason, this research will not see neofunctionalism and liberal and new intergovernmentalism as mutually exclusive theories, but rather complementary to one another. As cited by Hooghe and Marks (2019 p. 1128), “Each theory disciplines thinking about the behavior of key actors, the arenas in which they act, and the causal mechanisms that connect their actions to institutional outcomes.”. By approaching the data from contrasting perspectives, different themes and patterns can be distinguished and accentuated under various scholarly contexts. Further Hooghe and Marks (2019) state that the Eurozone crisis, the migration crisis and Brexit, among other examples, can and have been considered as episodes comprising elements of intergovernmental negotiation, spill overs and deliberative conflict. Therefore, the same expectations are put on the case of Covid-19, where the ambition is to use

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these three theories to highlight different parts of the crisis response and decision-making progress.

2.2 Neofunctionalism The origins of neofunctionalism were first brought to light by Ernst. B Haas and Leon Lindberg in the late 1950’s as a reaction to the growth of the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community (Wiener and Diez, 2009). The newly founded pan-European institutions presented interconnected dynamics between each other. When one institution seemed to develop, the effect would also carry over to its sister institutions, even in other sectors, as stated in Haas work from 1958 the Uniting of Europe. This “spill over” effect is a central idea as to why further integration occurs and is a necessity due to the interconnected nature of some institutions and policies. Further, in contrast to the contemporary dominant classical realistic school of thought, which Haas set out to question, neofunctionalism posits that multiple actors seek regional integration not only due to the power but also due to values based on interests and desires. When these actors decide that such interests and desires are better fulfilled through supranational institutions rather than their own national equivalents, integration is to be expected. Through the integration process, Haas and Dinan (2004) in accordance with Wiener and Diez (2009), suggests that actors are inclined to shift their preferences, activities and perhaps even loyalties toward a more supranational nature as a consequence of gained benefits through joint- competence and decision making.

Neofunctionalism highlights that European integration to a large extent is caused by “spill over” effects of functional, political or cultivated forms from earlier integrative initiatives. Functional forms of spill over revolves around the interconnected relation between different sectors and policy-areas. In some cases, trans-sectoral integrative progress has to be made in order for one of the concerned sectors to function properly, if no other alternatives are

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present (Niemann & Ioannou, 2015). Haas and Dinan (2004 p. 296) give the example that the integrative progress would have to be made in the transportation sector if progress would be made in the coal and steel sector, or else the latter would not function properly. The choice to incorporate neofunctionalism in this thesis rests partially on the argument that it will provide insight in the identification of any functional interdependencies between the current health policy sector other policy sectors. In turn, will also help in uncovering where such interdependencies between policy sectors faulter as a consequence of the pandemic impacts. From this, it will be able to discern integrative advancements made in order to fill these gaps and “future-proof” the sectors against similar crises.

Political spill overs concern integration that are based in the interests of various elites and interest groups that are convinced that supranational cooperation better fits their desires and interests than cooperation on the national level. This kind of integration is, according to Haas and Dinan (2004) as well as Cini and Pérez-Solórzano Borragán (2016) a consequence of a deliberate political process driven by politicians, lobbyists and stakeholders through pressurizing national governments into seeking further cooperation at EU-level. In this, neofunctionalism will be advantageous in examining the willingness of national elites and transnational actors to push for collective responses toward the pandemic, and in extension, potentially increased integration.

Cultivated spill over takes into account the situations where the integrative progress is established through the operations of the supranational entity. In the European context, this entity is the European Commission (henceforward named the Commission). Even though the Commission has always carried the central role as the executive branch of the Union, its influential extent has varied since its creation. From having been a very principal function in the 50’s, as granted from the Rome Treaties, to becoming a less influential one

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in the midst of the “empty chair crisis” in the 1960’s (Cini and Pérez- Solórzano Borragán, 2016). The Commission later gained back some influence with the establishment of the single market and the new commencement of the European project in the 1980’s, and power once again began to relocate from member state governments to European institutions. Today, it could be argued that the equilibrium of political power within the European Union is more ambiguous than it has been before (Cini and Pérez- Solórzano Borragán, 2016; Nugent and Rhinard, 2016; Novak, Rozenberg and Bendjaballah, 2020). Nevertheless, as put forward by Nugent and Rhinard (2016) the Commission still plays the foremost role as agenda- setting actor within the EU. Both in explicit terms but also in implicit terms with the help of other European institutions. The emergence of novel European agencies and institutional bodies might have come to question the influence of the Commission, with some power consequently being reallocated to these more recent actors. However, the Commission holds the prime responsibility of bringing legislative propositions forward to the judicial branch of the EU and can still exert influence on the formation of policies as well as the EU’s priorities and agenda (Cini and Pérez-Solórzano Borragán, 2016).

As described by (Cini and Pérez-Solórzano Borragán, 2016; Wiener and Diez, 2009), the Commission is keen to coordinate its legislative initiatives with various institutions and agencies of the Union, taking their evaluations and advice into account. This is a way to devise proposals going through the co-decision process of the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament (EP). This, as highlighted by Novak, Rozenberg and Bendjaballah, (2020), might result in proposals of the Commission being compromised on, as a requirement to be able to reach consensus. Should the proposals suggest too large integrative advancements, it is likely to not have

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enough support to pass the voting in the Council or the EP (Novak, Rozenberg and Bendjaballah, 2020).

It is worthwhile mentioning that although Neofunctionalism may be one of the most recognized theories of integration, has also gained critique. The intergovernmental scholar Stanley Hoffman argues that European integration does not come from a supranational entity, but rather from the participating member states. The speed, the form and the level of integrative progression all depend on the national government's decision and willingness to integrate. Further criticism is garnered from Schmitter (2005) who argues that neofunctionalism fails to fill the gap around the growing complexity that comes with an enlarged Union. The growing amount of member states translates into a more heterogeneous set of wills within the community. This in extension leads to large transformations in the scope of the Union and a greater risk of members pulling the Union in different directions, where someone will feel cheated in the end.

2.3 Intergovernmentalism, liberal and new A rather different grand theory of European integration is that of liberal intergovernmentalism, which was defined and first brought forward in the early 90’s by Andrew Moravcsik. Liberal intergovernmentalism, in contrast to Neofunctionalism, posits that national governments are the primary powers behind the integration process, rather than a supranational entity. Governments, in an anarchic environment, seek cooperation with other governments based on their preferences and coordinate policies and initiatives through negotiation and bargaining. Moravcsik (1993 p. 480) himself state that the European Community "is best seen as an international regime for policy co-ordination”, through which states are able to negotiate deals around national interests and preferences more effectively.

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According to Wiener and Diez (2009), liberal intergovernmentalism should be seen as a synthesis of theoretical elements, which together constitute a framework for understanding the integrative progress. Moravcsik (1993) as well as Wiener and Diez (2009) thereby present the following elements: a liberal approach to national preference making, an intergovernmental theory on interstate negotiation, as well as a choice and delegation to international institutions.

National state preferences are construed by values derived from demands and interactions of domestic societal groups which affect the national government's agenda. The demands are, as Nugent (2010) describes, often guided by limitations and opportunities given by economic interdependence. Sometimes preferences are mistaken to be static, but Moravscik (1993) rather argues that preferences are only constant within a particular matter and period of negotiation and can very much be able to change depending on the circumstances or the timeframe.

These preferences are later accentuated by the national governments in the process of international cooperation. However, hardly ever do various national governments’ preferences fully coincide with each other. Instead a procedure of interstate bargaining begins, where the governments negotiate the agreements and the distribution of costs and benefits on the mutually beneficial collaboration. The nature of the negotiation, and in extension the outcome, are often dependent on the bargaining power of the participating parties. Moravcsik, highlights that factors such as size, prosperity and the self-sustainment of states all influence the bargaining power. As does a state's dependence on a successfully negotiated agreement, where a lower interest in cooperation can be ascribed greater leverage. Similar disparities have been visible within the EU before, where member states have been grouped into large and small, prosperous and stagnant, and so on. Finke and Bailer (2019) and Frieden and Walter (2019), Wiener and Diez (2009) argue

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that member states that are more self-sufficient and not as dependent on the Union are better off in situations of bargaining. Other factors have not shown the same amount of influence.

The subsequent part of the potential cooperative arrangement is first and foremost a mutual decision to merge competence within a centralized collective institution, and then the structural makeup of the institution. The logic behind decisions to delegate and pool sovereignty within centralized supranational entities are attributed to its efficiency. Supranational institutions are created by the parties in order to lower the transaction costs for future negotiations, with the thought that greater efficiency can be reached through collective activity and shared technocratic experience and information. There is also the argument of an increasing credibility of the agreements themselves through the establishment of both transparency and accountability between states (Wiener and Diez,2009).

As previously stated, liberal intergovernmentalism holds national states as the essential actors. Nevertheless, the distribution of power and influence in the EU is argued. Kassim and Menon (2010) write that the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty both have redistributed the power in favour of the member states rather than the Commission. Limitations have been imposed on the Commission's executive abilities along with its autonomy with the increased legislative power of the EP and the Council. In comparison to other Union bodies, the Commission’s domain of importance has diminished over time (Kassim and Menon, 2010). While the neofunctionalist theory’s foci is mainly out of a supranational perspective, the liberal intergovernmental theory, in contrast rely on member state actors as the principal agents of integration. This approach will assist in distinguishing the roles that member states play in the shaping of potential integrative outcomes by providing insight into the dynamics of interstate

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bargaining in relation to the corona pandemic – something that is overlooked in the neofunctionalist theory.

Like neofunctionalism, liberal intergovernmentalism has garnered both much approval and criticism in its applicability in the case of the integrative development of the EU (Rosamond, 2000). While it does describe the impact of interstate negotiative processes on European integration in isolated cases, it fails to take the resulting internal effects on the framework's own elements (interdependence, preferences and bargaining power) into consideration. Neither does it explain how sequences of cases of integration can be interconnected and influence each other (Schimmelfennig, 2018a). Furthermore, Finke (2009), Nugent (2010) and Wincott (1995) concur that the practicality of liberal intergovernmentalism so far has been shown to be quite narrow, and the criteria on which cases it selects, too rigid to depict the day-to-day progression of European integration. Something which Wiener and Diez (2009) does not fully agree with, since much of the daily decision making of the EU, and to a certain degree the daily integrative progress, is made through consensus or unanimous agreement, rather than supranational arrangements.

New intergovernmentalism is in some parts a continuation of its liberal counterparts, yet in other parts it has sought to frame the integrative process in different lights. While it, like its liberal equivalent, recognizes national governments as central acting powers behind the European integrative process, it does not necessarily acknowledge the polarization between intergovernmental cooperation and supranational supremacy. According to Nugent (2010), new intergovernmentalism is a middle range integration theory based in the political and legislative workings of the EU, its functions and executive capabilities.

Instead the post- Maastricht European Union, according to Bickerton et al (2015), is subjected to what is described as the “integration paradox” in

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which continuous integration is likely to happen but not necessarily toward a supranational end goal. Integrative progress does not simply mean that competencies are shifted from national to supranational political accounts but rather to that of specialized de- novo institutions with concentrated functional abilities and autonomy. Conventional institutions representing the supranational powers of the EU (i.e the Commission, the CJEU and the EP) still have their purpose in community policies of more traditional nature. They are not however, as stated by Puetter (2014), the member states favoured choice in the decision-making or coordination of more contemporary policy-areas. Here, the integration paradox come into consideration for the thesis, as it in in opposition to neofunctionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism, will be able to highlight shifts moving from national level to EU-level, but not automatically toward supranational institutions.

From this development, the influential powers over day-to-day activities instead move toward EU bodies representing the member states, where the European Council is the most prominent political actor of the EU. New intergovernmentalism posits that European integrative advancements are largely based on the established consensus of its member states, explaining their representative EU bodies’ growth of responsibilities since the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty. While the European Council has gained a larger role in leading the EU, the Council have garnered new and increased policy- decision capabilities. According to Puetter (2014), it has become a central decision-making institution, which under the supervision of, and extensive deliberation with, the European Council have managed to circumscribe the autonomy of conventional institutions to initiate and define legislation and policies.

Puetter (2014) along with Bickerton et al (2015a) understand this effect as a consequence derived from the preferred consensus-seeking behaviour

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displayed by member states, deliberative intergovernmentalism. As a way of streamlining the increasing process of lengthy policy negotiations and debates that has followed with the post Maastricht- transformation in policy dynamics have led to: “permanent attempts at institutional engineering that are aimed at increasing the consensus generation potential of the EU's main forums for member state representation: the European Council and the Council of the European Union” (Puetter, 2014 p.34). The new intergovernmental theory will then be useful for the thesis to highlight the prominence of consensus-seeking rather than bargaining, thus being able to determine the roles of the European Council and the Council in the outcome of the pandemic response.

2.4 Integration theories in crises As told by the extensive amount of research pertaining to explain the integrative processes of the European Union, significant integrative shifts in the past have frequently been linked to critical episodes taking place under particularly unusual circumstances. Something which has characterized the last decade’s European landscape with the emergence of the Eurozone crisis around 2010, the refugee crisis of 2015 and the British exit of 2016. These, and equally decisive examples, have been ascribed to the increasing efforts of EU- specific integrative research made since 2010 and forward (Hodson and Puetter, 2019; Hooghe and Marks, 2019). Two of the most disastrous examples, the Eurozone crisis around 2010 and the refugee crisis of 2015, helps in showcasing the integrative advancements, and setbacks. According to Genschel and Jachtenfuchs (2018) these two crises illustrate the problems that has followed with the Union’s shifted focus from integrative measures within the market sector, to sectors closer to the core state. Schimmelfennig (2018a p.969) further describe the similarities between the two cases where” exogenous shocks exposed the functional shortcomings of both integration projects and produced sharp distributional conflict among governments, as

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well as an unprecedented politicization of European integration in member state societies”. Arguably, the sudden outbreak of Covid-19 seems to display the same characteristics as the ones described by Schimmelfennig (2018b). Further it is directly related to the health policy area, a policy-sector in which the competence is still largely at the national level, meaning it might prove to display the same problem as presented by Genschel and Jachtenfuchs (2018).

2.5 The neofunctionalist perspective in previous crises The unfolding consequences of the Eurozone debt crisis was a hard blow for the European Union, but even more so for some of its member states. As written by Niemann & Ioannou (2015) and Schimmelfennig, (2017), there were multiple dysfunctionalities present at the time of the crisis which according to the authors amplified the impacts of the crisis. One such dissonance for example, was the detached competences allocated between the EU and the national governments. While the management of the monetary policies had been assigned to the EU, the fiscal policies had been given to the member states to control. Niemann and Ioannou (2015) further describes that in addition to this, the Union lacked the appropriate instruments to adequately supervise financial developments and manage the increasing pressures of the financial crisis. Similarly, another critical event that has proven to challenge the functional balance of the European Union is that of the European migration crisis. Around 2015 and 2016 , several hundreds of thousands refugees and displaced people sought acute refuge within the EU as a result of the escalating conflicts within the Middle Eastern region around the period - causing the largest inflow of acute migrants to the Union since the Second World War (Niemann and Zaun, 2018).

As with the Eurozone, Niemann and Zaun (2018) in accordance with Niemann and Speyer (2018), both emphasize that while the massively increased inflow to the EU has generally been perceived as the principal cause behind the 2015 crisis, it was simply the spark that lit the fire. Instead

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it had revealed underlying dysfunctionalities between the supranational Schengen agreements in conjunction with an inadequately developed external border. The Schengen agreement had been largely Europeanized and coordinated at a supranational level, the external border controls had been left a primary responsibility of the EU’s member states (Genshel and Jachtenfuchs, 2018; Niemann and Speyer, 2018). Something which subsequently had left the Union and its members poorly equipped to deal with the steeply increasing influx of refugees where the: “...crisis thus constituted a catalyst that exposed the weaknesses of the system that had been constructed in the 1990s and not been sufficiently advanced and Europeanized since” (Niemann and Speyer, 2018 p.38). Genshel and Jachtenfuchs (2018) in accordance with Niemann and Zaun (2018) further assert that there were bottlenecks and deficiencies in the responsibility- spreading abilities within the EU, leaving the most affected member states incapable of resolving the growing crisis.

From this, the common solution lied in the development of the European Border and Coast Guard (ECBG) regulations and further integrational steps within the European FRONTEX agency. Strengthening the security of the external borders had been the preferred option, as it would mean a reduction in the imbalance of competence between the Schengen structure and the governmental external border control. The Commission had proposed internal solutions - including a quota system aimed to allocate the inflows of migrants proportionately as well as and raised standards for the facilitation of asylum seekers, both of which had been dismissed by the majority of the member states (Niemann and Speyer, 2018). In the Eurozone crisis the common solution lied in the establishment of a banking union, as well as more supranational influence in the supervision of the fiscal management of its members and through the European Stability Mechanism (Schimmelfennig, 2018a; Schimmelfennig, 2018b).

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From a neofunctional perspective the Eurozone crisis revealed benefits of a strong and interconnected Eurozone, but also underlined its functional gaps. The advocated answer for finding a resolution to the crisis has been to intensify the progress of integration forward as a way to fill these functional shortcomings. These same arguments were brought forward by multiple national governments and several EU institutions with the general discourse now revolving around furthering the integration. At the same time organisations, industrial leaders and other interest groups were keen to promote objectives leading to further integration, if that would solve the crisis and rescue the euro (Genschel and Jachtenfuchs, 2018; Niemann and Ioannu, 2015). Like with the Eurozone crisis, several governmental and non- governmental actors had been quick to show their approval toward a continuation of the Schengen area, and had advocated for a strengthened Union in the asylum and border policy sectors as well as its crisis management capabilities. Niemann and Speyer (2018) describe that there had been meetings between political bodies such as the Working Party on Frontiers, Justice- and Home Affairs Council (JHA) counsellors and the Strategic Committee on Immigration, Frontiers and Asylum (SCIFA) which had facilitated for lowered political thresholds. Simultaneously, Non- governmental organisations such as the Amnesty organisation and the network European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) had actively pushed for integrative measures in the asylum sector in order to raise the standards and protections of the individual migrant. The termination of the Schengen agreement would also have brought massive costs and renew the cumbersome internal border controls of the trade and travel sectors. This of course, sat ill with business organisations aiming to conduct international trade within the EU which as written by Niemann and Speyer (2018) had mobilized their umbrella organisations to assert their cause. The author continues by stating that these types of actions indicate political spill over

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where the above-mentioned actors could, and likely have, stimulated the decision-making processes to some degree.

In the process of managing the Eurozone crisis, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Central Bank (ECB) were the principal actors in European context. Although these supranational entities were tasked to handle the crisis, several of the crisis management initiatives were taken on an intergovernmental basis rather than through the Commission according to both Hodson (2013) and Niemann and Ioannou (2015). The intergovernmental spirit displayed by the European Council and the Eurogroup in the Eurozone crisis left the Commission with little room for its own proposals. Nevertheless, the Commission’s role shifted with the crisis by initiative of the member states, leaving it with a more extensive role in tasks such as safeguarding and surveilling financial stability. Through this, the Commission was granted both new competence and autonomic promise. But it steered the Commission’s aptitude in proposing new policies, more toward that of supervising and managing already existing ones (Bauer and Becker, 2014; Hodson, 2013). Still, its scope and power of policy recommendations and agenda setting powers had been expanded. This was assured as the European Parliament made certain that the supranational aspect in the legislative processes was retained and that the procedures efficiency was increased, hence constraining the member states. The ECB played an essential role in keeping the Euro stable and mitigating the escalation of the crisis. Governments and financial markets alike, put their trust toward the ECB to repress the crisis (Heldt and Mueller, 2020). It was an initial advocate that pushed for further deepening integrative advancements that would empower the EMU. The most prominent example might be the determined efforts of promoting the establishment of a banking union (Hodson, 2013).

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In contrast, the Commission was seen as the driving force of integrative policies within the JHA section and had displayed many characteristics of a supranational policy entrepreneur in the refugee crisis. Its role as an advocating mediator in the trilogue with the European Council and the EP had played an important part in advancing the integrative responses around the migration crisis. The Commission had been a well-coordinated and confident actor in the matter, managing to construct and communicate a proposal on the development of the ECBG at the right moment, in record time. By acting as swiftly as it did, the Commission managed to circumscribe the involvement of the member states and depoliticize some of the components within the proposal. The Dutch Presidency managed to further the ECBG deliberative processes through decisive leadership and an ability to take advantage of innovative solutions and time pressure. The Commission had been further assisted by the Dutch Presidency who consciously adopted a confirmatory strategy to quickly direct the member states towards a common solution. Nevertheless the Council with the Presidency in the lead accomplished to expand their powers in the authorization of intervention through a compromise. This meant that the authorization would happen through qualified majority voting, rather than through the Commission’s originally proposed committee system.

2.6 The liberal and new intergovernmentalist framework in previous crises The framework of liberal intergovernmentalism provides insight into the national preferences of governments that arose with the Eurozone- and refugee crisis and the ensuing intergovernmental negotiations. As Schimmelfennig (2018b) suggests in events of the Eurozone, the general positioning of governments towards disintegration, or the maintenance of status quo, had been negative due to the immense external repercussions that

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would follow. Both financial and political resources and authority were at serious risk of being lost. Rather, the solution proposed had been further collaboration, in a more efficient and coordinated manner. In reality, as written by Schimmelfennig (2018b) the definition of what “efficient” and “coordinated” meant differed between member states. A large discrepancy between creditor members and debtor members emerged around the distribution of the cooperative measures, with each bloc urging for their own preferential solutions. While creditor countries pushed for nationalized financial adjustments and economic austerity, the debtor countries rather promoted and highlighted a mutualized resolution (Schimmelfennig, 2018b). Although the Eurozone countries were deeply interdependent of each other, the intergovernmental negotiations disclosed asymmetrical aspects between the parties. In this case, in favour of the creditor members. Finke and Bailer (2019) Frieden and Walter (2019) as well as Schimmelfennig (2015) present the Franco-German tandem which had great clout in the stipulation of terms in the Eurozone negotiations. Schimmelfennig (2015) however, concluded that the outcome of the Eurozone negotiations largely pursued the preferences of Germany. Bressanelli and Chelotti (2016) as well as Puetter and Fabbrini (2016) in contrast argue that the European Council was paramount for coordinating the member states in the Eurozone crisis. This had mainly because of its ability to influence the political importance of certain issues by bringing them to attention through the heads of state, or downplaying them from the public eye. Smeets and Zaun (2020) state that, when policy-discussions stagnated, they were often taken to the European Council for consultation, which had been the case in the establishment of the banking union, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the European Financial Stability Mechanism (EFSM). Nevertheless, as further explained by Smeets and Zaun (2020) the role of the European Council had differed in the three initiatives. The EFSM had been an immediate crisis response, in which the European Council had played a leading role. It had deliberately

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intensified the political importance in immediate action, thereby pressuring the finance ministers into progressing the EFSM as fast as possible. In the progressions of the ESM and the banking union, the European Council instead played a more subtle role. In this case, the European Council partook in the progression of the initiatives in a lesser degree, but rather was seen as a sounding board offering guidance (Smeets and Zaun, 2020).

In relation to the refugee crisis, the intergovernmental tensions and the clashing national preferences may have been an essential component in its outcome (Wiener, Börzel and Risse, 2019; Wolf and Ossewarde, 2018). As with the Eurozone crisis, Schimmelfennig (2018b p.1586) present that there had been clear preference constellations of the refugee crisis, based in the direct effect of the influx of migrants where “... their affected-ness depended on their position toward the main migration routes, and this position was a function of geography and economic as well as regulatory asylum conditions”. In accordance, Wien, Börzel and Diez (2019) state that the preferences in this episode are largely derived from the domestic societal and public domain, where migration policies tended to show greater salience in directly affected states, in contrast to less affected states. The authors separate the constellations into four groups: Front-line states, destination states, transit states and bystander states. The two latter constellations' national preferences had generally been more tolerant as evident in the ensuing negotiations to resolve the crisis. Biermann et al. (2019), Schimmelfennig (2018b) as well as Zaun (2018) describe the bargaining situation as one-sided where the unaffected parties dominated the negotiation process. There had been no clear common-interest between the states to resolve the crisis, as doing so would mean that the less affected transit- and bystander states would undertake unwanted costs and responsibilities. As such it became a game of suasion, where the front-line (Italy, Greece and

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Malta) and destination states (Sweden, Germany and Austria) negotiated desperately to convince the remaining members of a joint solution.

The Commission’s proposal of an establishment of a migration quota system which would introduce a proportional distribution of the influxes of asylum- seeking migrants had been greatly supported by the affected states. While managing a one-time relocation of around 160 000 migrants, under strong opposition by the Eastern member states, a permanent system failed to be adopted. The Commission’s permanent proposal had been voted down by transit- and bystander countries, who deemed the costs too high in proportion to the status quo. Schimmelfennig (2018b) and Biermann et al. (2019) ascribe this to be a consequence of the highly asymmetrical nature of the crisis and the lacking interdependence of the asylum and migrant policy sectors in contrast to that of the Euro crisis. The willingness of cooperation had been greater around the ECBG regulations where member states had found more to gain from joint instead of national external border control. The perceived cost and responsibility of such integrative advancements were less in comparison joint initiatives of facilitating and receiving migrants and asylum seekers.

3 Methodological framework

The methodological framework begins with the delineation of the chosen research design within the thesis as well as a presentation on the research’s applied methodology, the single case study approach. Next, is a discussion on the material used to conduct the study as well as the strategy of data analysis. At the end of this section an operationalisation on the selected European integration theories is formulated and explained.

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3.1 Case study This research will base itself on an exploratory approach. With the aim of exploring the measures taken by the EU in response to the corona pandemic, this research aspires to provide further insight into the Union’s capabilities of crisis management and response in general, and specifically in relation to a cross-border health emergency. Seeing that the phenomena studied are relatively novel, it is argued that the decision on an explorative design is better fit for the rather than that of a descriptive or explanatory design of research (Schmidt, 2020; Wolff and Ladi, 2020). As noted in section 2.4 in this thesis, there has been a linkage between critical moments and a tendency of increased willingness of further integrative advancements as a way to react to current critical situations, as well as prevent future crises of the same sorts. For these reasons, the manner in which this thesis undertakes these questions is done by grounding itself in the single case research approach, focusing on the European Union, with the Covid-19 outbreak and the health policy area as the units of analysis. Generally, crisis coordination and management in European context, and especially so in the health sector, have been regarded as one of the Union’s weaknesses (Greer et al., 2014; Brooks and Geyer, 2020). Partly, this is a problem based in the difficulties of the high diversity of member states capacities and preconditions. Partly due to the subsidiarity principle which limits the EU’s legal, coordinative and operative capacities (Boin and Rhinard, 2008; Greer et al., 2014). Furthermore, the health sector within the Union has up until now been largely spared of crises of pan-European magnitude similar to that of the Eurozone crisis or the refugee crisis. Simultaneously, the European health policy sector is an area in which its competence to a large extent is dearly reserved to that of the member states national exercise, as stated in the TFEU Article 168. In comparison to other policy areas, it has not been studied to the same extent, making it well fitted for a case study with an explorative basis.

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The exhaustive nature of the case research method generally allows for, and requires, the chosen phenomena to be studied from multiple perspectives. This aids in the discovery of underlying patterns and latent factors of explanations. It also provides the benefit of permitting the utilisation of various sources of explanatory aspects to enrich the research’s quality (Bryman, 2012). Gerring (2004) in accordance with Yin (2003) further writes that case studies are considered to be more empirically based than methods founded in quantitative nature. Hence, it is considered to be better suited for research which has not been extensively explored. It is important to note however that due to the very same complex nature of most case studies, it can be an inappropriate tool for generalization. Although considering the circumstances in this research, the non-generalizability of the contributions should not be regarded as a hindrance due to its novel circumstances. The aim with this thesis is not to provide generalizable results, but rather to provide insight into the decision-making dynamics of the EU’s responsive measures against Covid-19, and the potential impacts on integration those measures might have.

3.2 Material The choice of material carries great weight in the outcome of the study. This thesis will examine several various sources of documents and texts in its objective to answer the posed research questions. The main fragments of the data collection will be based on legislative documents released by the EU. These consist of proposals brought forward by the Commission, as well as already implemented proposals, related to the response toward the Covid-19 pandemic between January and November 2020. Further, there are additional documents which are relevant to the study. These come in the form of conclusions from the European Council and the Council and communications from the Commission. Although not yet being fully official in the legislative manner, but rather suggestions and recommendations from one actor to

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another, these documents hold great value considering that the Covid-19 crisis is still relatively novel. This material will help in illuminating indicative standpoints within the EU, regarding the measures proposed or taken to mitigate the Covid-19 crisis and prevent future crises of similar character.

The majority of these documents, as well as the legislative propositions, and implementations mentioned above, have been drawn from the Commission’s and the Council’s web sites respectively. In reaction to the pandemic, both the Commission and the Council have each established a new web section dedicated to gathering the EU’s responses toward Covid-19 in a comprehensive way. Whilst the Commissions and the Council’s respective section gather all the material in one place, the collective material still constitutes a massive amount of information. Therefore the choice was made to focus specifically on the material presented within each of the two institution’s established timelines of action, which chronologically highlights the initiatives taken by the EU and are regularly updated. Here, each of the actions are presented by a smaller notice, including a link leading to a full press release by the respective institution. Within these press releases there are often links included to the relevant material (proposals, legislative documents, conclusions, communications and negotiation positions etc). Both timelines have directly linked all this material via the EU’s judicial and bibliographical platform EUR-Lex, meaning that the material is officially released under the EU.

Seeing that there can be limitations with the sole use of EU documents, the research also makes use of other sources of material to supplement the understanding of the processes behind the EU response. Data such as official statements of the EU- and member state leaders are gathered from media outlets as a purpose to gain clearer insights on the preferences displayed by national governments and transnational actors. Here material is used from a

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wider range of sources, including the Politico and Euractiv, Euronews and the Financial Times. Naturally, it would be preferable to rely on primary sources for this data, such as transcripts of national- and business leader speeches as well as statements, positions and legislatives directly released by the same. However, given the time required to collect, read and analyse the sufficient amount of material to cover these actors' positions fully the choice fell to rely on articles as a second-best option. With this, a chosen few scientific articles are included from the following authors: Agosto et al., 2020, Anderson, Mckee and Mossialos (2020), Brooks and Geyer, 2020, de Feo (2020), Greer and de Ruijter (2020), Johnson et al, (2020), Lehner (2020).

3.3 Data analysis strategy As a way of exploring the integrative progress of the EU during the Covid-19 crisis, the material used in this thesis will be scrutinized through a thematic content analysis. Bryman (2012) describes that the method is a research approach used to thoroughly examine the collected data in order to reveal underlying information, patterns and themes. The methodology will not only help to analyse the data, but it will also be of assistance in the organisation of the vast amount of data that often accompanies research of qualitative nature.

While there is an abundance of different ways to perform a content analysis, it is generally done through a procedure of coding - labelling and categorizing, the data at hand. The intention of this then, is to derive meanings from data extracts and sort them in various larger groups of collective meanings. (Bryman, 2012). Further, the chosen approach of this thesis - the thematic analysis of content, as described by Guest, MacQueen and Namey (2012) requires great amounts of both involvement and interpretation from the researcher. That is, the focus is rather on the relations and context between the codes, themes and patterns, rather than the codes in isolated states such as counts of words and phrases. However, this does not

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mean that the former excludes the latter, they are rather seen as additional perspectives of interpreting the data (Bryman, 2012; Guest, Macqueen and Namey, 2012).

With this study being focused around the EU’s crisis response toward the Covid-19 pandemic and the following integrative progress, the procedure of the coding will be grounded in a set of initial concepts and codes derived whilst reading the material. This serves as the first framework for further decisions on the course of the coding as well as the identification and extraction of the overarching themes. Then, the process of coding the material in a reliable manner requires a rigid, thorough and repeated process of reading and rereading the material. This is done in order to be familiarized with it and the data, as recommended by both Bryman (2012) and Guest, Macqueen and Namey (2012). From this, not only manifested meaning may appear but also meanings of latent characteristics.

3.4 Methodological discussion As previously mentioned, the choice of conducting case studies commonly entail hardships in generalizability, due to its complex and interpretive foundation (Bryman, 2012). However, the aim with this thesis is not to provide generalizable results, but rather to provide insight into the decision- making dynamics of the EU’s responsive measures against Covid-19, and the potential impacts on integration those measures might have.

As important, is the discussion regarding the replicability of the study, which refer to the extraction and comprehension of the meanings within the chosen body of material. These processes should be both transparent and replicable, where the presented results should prove to be consistent over time and independent of the researcher itself. Bryman (2012), further explain that in order to ensure strong replicability, the research procedures must be explained in a transparent and detailed way. Therefore, to fulfil these criteria, this thesis has included a description of the data collection method and the

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data itself in section 3.2 of this thesis, as well as provided an analytical framework in the forthcoming section, 3.5. Here the main arguments of the European integration theories as well as their related indicators are presented and described, both in text and comprised as seen in table 1 below.

3.5 Analytical framework

3.5.1 Operationalisation of European integration European integration, as disclosed in the theoretical chapter of this thesis, takes place when competence is transferred from national level to EU level. It can transpire either through agreements between member states to collaborate at EU-level, by allocating the legislative and executive influence toward institutions and agencies within the EU or through a collective decision to centralize autonomy through supranational governance. In this regard, expressed demands and decisions to collectively respond to the Covid-19 crisis through the EU would imply the process of European integration. Within the health policy area specifically integrative advancements would be related to the transference of legislative influence and competence. In contrast, expression of the need for further sovereignty of states, intergovernmental bargaining separates from the EU and decision making at the national level and hindrance of supranational proposals would indicate the need of less integrative advancement.

3.5.2 Operationalization of European integration theories In order to discern the central ideas of the included integrative theories in a digestible way, their respective main arguments will be put through a framework. This framework will be of assistance in the process of analysis and the evaluation of the theories suitability in relation to the empirical data.

Neofunctionalism

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Sub concepts Main arguments Indicators

Degree of High - multiple actors The policy frameworks are centralization seek supranationalism more centralized. as a way to gain influence and fulfil their values

Functional spill Integrative Legislation is over advancements are created/adjusted interconnected and specifically to address happen trans-sectorally trans-sectoral gaps.

No other possible alternatives are present.

Political spill over Elites at the national Legislative or responsive level promote actions are driven by integrative stakeholders. developments at EU level

European interest groups and organisations encourage European integration

Cultivated spill Supranational Legislative or responsive over organisations within the initiatives are driven by EU incite integration the Commission. Liberal intergovernmentalism

Sub concepts Main arguments Indicators

Degree of Low - Member states The policy frameworks centralization are the main driving remain largely force of integration. decentralized

National National preferences are Individual preferences and preferences moulded by domestic, constellations of member societal pressures - and states are accentuated in are regularly discrepant response to legislative or with other states. responsive initiatives

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Intergovernmental Integration is mainly a Intergovernmental bargaining product of rational bargaining situations arise governments decisions in response to initiatives to initiate collaborative deals States with better bargaining power Asymmetrical in terms influence the outcome of wealth, size and through coercion population and urgency

New intergovernmentalism

Degree of Low - although The policy frameworks centralization supranational remain largely institutions have their decentralized yet role in traditional supranational institutions community policies. can get more competence in traditional policies.

Integrative Competence is Legislative or responsive paradox transferred to agencies/ initiatives in favour of de- de-novo institutions novo institutions. rather from national to EU-level.

Consensus and Increased deliberation Legislative or responsive Deliberation initiatives are based on deliberative consensus, Table 1, operationalization of European integration theories,

As gathered from the neofunctional understanding on European integration, supranationalism is a product of multiple actors' decision to shift competence from national to regional level. Member states put their reliance and in some cases their loyalty in the hands of centralized governance with the ambition to gain influence and better fulfil their values and desires. This occurs mainly as a response to the three spill over effects - functional, political and cultivated spill over, which are greatly emphasized in the explanation of the integrative process and outcomes. Therefore, in order to scrutinize the

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tendencies of the power dynamics formalized in the EU, these three areas of spill overs will be included in the operationalization of neofunctionalism.

Arguments regarding the functional spill over effect revolves around the functional performance of a current policy area. Should a dysfunctionality arise or an imbalance in the current system appear, there would be arguments for further integrative progress as a solution. The idea behind functional spill overs is based in the functional dissonance between the status quo and existing limitations within it, visualized by a critical event, calling for further integration to quell the crisis. Therefore indicators of functional spill over would encompass claims of lacking functional capacities of the EU to properly respond to the situation created by the Covid-19 outbreak. It

Political spill over identifies the condition where national and transnational elites and various interest groups shift their activities, confidence and loyalty from national level toward that of the European Union. This is done in the event where the domestic capacity is not sufficient to solve an arising discrepancy. In turn, the ascension of domestic issues might itself bring potential integrative development. The involvement of these actors by adding political stimulus and fostering consensus in the European Union deliberative forums. Here cases of political spill over are indicated by national elites and transnational organisations affecting the policy-making outcomes by pressurizing member states into seeking more cooperation.

In terms of cultivated spill over, the supranational entities themselves are the driving force of integrative progress within the European Union. In the frame of this research, arguments for cultivated spill over encompasses the Commission’s role as an entrepreneurial actor in the health policy area, as well as its initiatives to respond to the Covid-19 outbreak. Should the Commission propose or initiate either legislative or executive activities which indicate advancements of their own self-interest, rather than that of its member states - it would speak for cultivated spill over.

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The intergovernmental understanding accentuates the importance of the member states as the key actors for integrative development, whereby the intergovernmental bargaining between the member states is central. This negotiation process is the system in which member states present their national preferences and ambitions with interstate cooperation, and thereafter decide on the most cost-beneficial alternative. The decision then, is to build the operationalization of the liberal intergovernmental theory upon the process of intergovernmental bargaining.

Even though the Covid-19 outbreak is a central event which has spread throughout the European continent, national preferences of states may perhaps still be incongruent with each other. Meaning that negotiations around the responsive measures against Covid-19, along with the preventative initiatives to similar events, are likely to arise. Statements from governments and their representatives will indicate their standpoints in these negotiations. In extension, this will also indicate whether they are inclined to push for more integration through the EU, or are seeking other means to solve the crisis. This also brings out the aspect pointed out by the liberal intergovernmentalist scholars, that the bargaining process more than often is asymmetrical in nature, meaning that the participating parts are not equal to one another. There may be instances where states at a better bargaining position will be able to influence the outcome of the negotiations at the expense of less influential states. More resourceful states may express restraint toward further interstate or supranational cooperation since the chance that their relative contribution is larger in comparison. This was exemplified within the previous chapter, in both the Eurozone- and the refugee crisis where the better off bargaining parties demonstrated restraint in initiatives deemed too costly.

However, in the case of new liberalism, the occurrence of competence shifts within the EU does not necessarily mean from national toward supranational

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vice versa, but rather to that of national to collective and agency specific. This is understood as a paradoxical phenomenon, where national competence de facto shifts and is pooled in a collective manner. Nevertheless in contrast to neofunctionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism, such shifts do not automatically transfer to a supranational endpoint. Instead as written demonstrated by Bickerton et al (2015a) and Puetter (2014) de novo institutions designed to specifically address the objectives at hand. Concurrently, this development has resulted in the expansion of the Council and the European Councils powers at the expense of conventional entities within the EU, such as the Commission. Such shifts would indicate new intergovernmental logics in the outcomes responses and policies.

4 Analysis

The analytical section is established into two parts, where the first part will present the empirical material through three main themes. After that, a discussion of the empirical material through the three approaches of European integration is presented.

4.1 Background to the virus and the initial outbreak

4.1.1 The European emergence of Covid-19 and the initial responses The first case within the borders of the European Union had been reported on the 24th of January 2020 in France within weeks from the first reported case, the coronavirus managed to sweep over the whole European continent, amounting to over 100 000 deaths in the first four months, of which France, Spain and Italy were hit particularly hard (Euronews, 2020a; Euronews, 2020b). Up until the end of February, “the number of cases in the EU/EEA was low and cases in Europe were either imported or part of well-defined transmission chains in Germany and France” (Johnson et al, 2020 p.3), with the epidemiological strategies mainly being focused on containment and

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monitoring of the transmission chains. Still, the hold of the virus managed to grow stronger and by the beginning of March, several European countries experienced increasingly uncontrollable internal contamination (Euronews,2020b).

As of the 11th of March, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced the sweeping outbreak of Covid-19 a global pandemic as a result of the rapidly intensifying emergency now amassing up to over 118 000 cases in 114 nations, whereas Europe had become the epicentre of the virus (Politico, 2020a). Early findings had suggested that social distancing, use of personal protective equipment (PPE) and finally, large scale restrictions had been effective in combating the spread of the virus. Come mid-March, almost the entirety of the Union's member states had imposed so called non- pharmaceutical intervention in the lack of any effective pharmaceutical countermeasures such as vaccinations or therapy (Agosto et al., 2020). These interventions included the imposition of strict lockdown restrictions, closure of several public establishments and institutions and the issuing of extensive confinement rules. In addition, travel bans, and enforcements of the external border were also strictly regulated throughout the European nations (Agosto et al., 2020).

Early on, the European Council Presidency had activated the Union’s crisis response mechanism - the IPCR on the 28th of January, thereby opening up for the facilitation of regular joint communication between the EU, its institutions and member states along with other concerned stakeholders (Council of the European Union, 2020a). The Commission was called upon by the Council to shoulder the responsibilities associated with that of a coordinating and executive crisis manager. These responsibilities have revolved around the four prioritized areas set out by the European Council, namely: 1) Limiting the spread of the virus, 2) provision of medical equipment, 3) Promotion research and 4) tackling socio-economic

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consequences (European Council, 2020a; European Council, 2020b). At this point the EU had two established structures it could use to mobilize direct actionable measures in light of a cross border health crisis, as disclosed by Brooks and Geyer (2020). First, there is the framework on health security staked out in the 2013 Decision on Serious Cross Border Threats to Health. This outlines the responsibility of the EU and member states respectively concerning the preparation, planning and execution of health threats and emergencies. In short, in the case of an emergent health threat, member state representatives in liaison with necessary experts and the Commission are assembled to the Health Security Committee (HSC). Through the Committee, the concerned parts consult each other on the actionable, and potential, responses available to mitigate the pending emergency. The framework further assigns the ECDC the role of leading the administration and monitoring of crisis development via information shared from national health authorities, providing continuous updates on the situation (Brooks and Geyer, 2020; Council Decision No 1082/2013/EU). Then, there is the Civil Protection Mechanism (CPM) functioning as a joint pool of strategic resources where Member states file records on their ready and available goods, services and personnel to be used for medical, safety and rescue purposes. These can then be deployed to other member states requesting support (Brooks and Geyer, 2020).

Still, the European emergence of Covid-19 had swiftly introduced the continent to unexpected challenges to which the initial responses had presented themselves in an uncoordinated and limited manner, both at the national level and the EU-level (Politico, 2020a). According to Anderson, Mckee and Mossialos (2020) and Greer and de Ruijter (2020), a majority of the Union’s member states had displayed a highly self-interested and unilateral behaviour in their acute responses to mitigate the outbreak. The imposition and revision of national restrictions and border regulations taken

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by the EUs member states, has generally occurred unannounced and in an uncoordinated manner (Johnson et al, 2020). According to Brooks and Geyer (2020), the full potential of the HSC and ECDC both remained unfulfilled, as a consequence the unilateral manner displayed by the member states, as their capabilities in large are based on member state participation and willingness to coordinate.

Complications also arose with increasingly severe shortages of PPE, necessary critical medicine and healthcare equipment that appeared as a consequence of massive demand increases as well as export stoppages both outside and inside the Union (Euractiv, 2020a). Part of this also encompassed the accumulation of necessary medical- and personal protective equipment, as was showcased with the German, French and Czech imposition of export bans of medical equipment - three of the four main European producers of such equipment save for Poland (Euractiv, 2020a; Politico, 2020a). This had worsened the situation in the most hard-pressed countries at the time, and Italy, who had been one of the worst fairing countries in the world during the initial stages of the pandemic outbreak, had repeatedly pleaded for Union solidarity (Financial times, 2020a; Politico, 2020b). By the end of February, Italy had resorted to the CPM, asking the Commission to activate it on Italy’s behalf as a call for assistance with the rapidly shrinking medical and protectionary supplies. However, Italy’s requests for assistance were met with silence, ultimately leading them to seek assistance from China instead (Financial Times, 2020a; Politico, 2020b). Concurrently, these events had sparked public dissatisfaction within the Italian public, which in turn have given Eurosceptic political bodies opportunity to solidify their positions (Financial Times, 2020a). In an attempt to deal with the internal shortages, the Commission initiated negotiations with the three governments, imploring them to lift the national export restrictions. However, only after the Commission had notified that it would

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proceed with legal repercussions under the infringement procedure against Germany had the bans been repealed (Politico, 2020c). The resolution would end in a temporary export ban encompassing all members of the Union which had restricted the movements of medical- and protective equipment outside EU-borders under the Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/402 (European Commission, 2020b; Euractiv, 2020b). Ultimately the shortages of medical equipment have been alleviated after the Commission successfully managed to acquire under a long-awaited joint procurement agreement in which 25 of the 27 member states participated in (Euractiv, 2020c). In similar fashion, the Commission has managed to partially solve the issue of national border closures through the proposal and adoption of prioritized “Green Lanes” and EU-wide border navigation, thus keeping cross-border export-chains alive (European Commission, 2020c).

Further, early fiscal responses were proposed by the Commission in order to ease the impact of the socio-economic consequences wrought by the pandemic (European Commission, 2020d). Commission president von der Leyen promised full flexibility in member states fiscal commitments and targets, stating:

“Today we propose maximum flexibility for our rules which will allow our national governments to support everybody - their healthcare systems, staff as well as the people so severly affected by the crisis. I want to make sure that we respond to the human as well as socio-economic dimension of the Coronavirus pandemic in the best way possible.” (European Commission, 2020e)

Through triggering the escape clause within the Stability and Growth pact, the Commission enable member states to deviate temporarily from the adjustment path set to reach their budgetary objectives, acting as an

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immediate economic cushioning for the member states (European Commission, 2020d).

When the death rates seemed to decline continually throughout the European continent by the beginning of April up until June, nations gradually began to ease their restrictive interventions and once again open up - giving the European governments and the EU some leeway and time to recoup (Euronews , 2020c). Prior to this the Commission, together with the European Council, laid forth a joint roadmap for exit strategies Commission presented the Joint Roadmap towards lifting the COVID-19 containment measures that would formalize the exit strategies of the member states. The roadmap entailed:

“recommendations to Member States, with the goal of preserving public health while gradually lifting containment measures to restart community life and the economy. It is not a signal that containment measures can be lifted immediately but intends to inform Member States’ actions and provide a frame for ensuring EU-level and cross-border coordination, while recognising the specificity of each Member State.” (European Commission and European Council, 2020 p.3.)

The purpose of the roadmap would be too coordinate the EU and its member states in order to minimize the consequences brought not only by the pandemic itself, but the also the entailing socio-economic impact from the unilateral border- and containment measures – which had put the functioning of the Single market and the Schengen project at question:

“These restrictive measures have been necessary to slow down the spread of the virus and have already saved tens of thousands of lives. But they come at a high social and economic cost. They put a strain on mental health and force citizens to radically change their day-to-day lives. They have created huge shocks to the economy and seriously impacted the functioning of the

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Single Market, in that whole sectors are closed down, connectivity is significantly limited and international supply chains and people’s freedom of movement have been severely disrupted.” (European Commission and European Council, 2020 p.2)

This roadmap has not been as fruitful as hoped for, as illustrated by the continuance of highly differing epidemiological strategies presented by the member states (Politico, 2020d. Euractiv, 2020d).

4.2 Resilience building within the Union

4.2.1 The Eurogroup package In European context, the pandemic has shown to be a double-edged sword. On one side it has vastly impacted the public health of the European Union's citizens, remaining a constant threat and reminder that the situation can intensify even further, should the spreading not be adequately mitigated. With a majority of the member states' national healthcare capacities already strained to their limits, such an increase would be disastrous as argued by Greer and de Ruijter (2020) as well as Anderson, Mckee and Mossialos (2020). On the other hand, the imposition of strict confinement rules and border controls have proven to greatly impact the stability and potential of the European economies, as disclosed by the Commission (European Commission, 2020f). Meanwhile according to the same document, the unemployment rate throughout the continent would amount to 9% as a result of the impeded consumption and the halted productivity (European Commission, 2020f).

In response to these economic aspects of the crisis, the Eurogroup had announced a €500 billion threefold strategy on the 16th of March (Eurogroup, 2020). First, it encompassed the use of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) through its newly established Pandemic Crisis Support Line of credit (PCSL), based on its Enhanced Conditions Credit Line

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(ECCL) available to all euro area sovereigns for financial support up to 2% of their respective GDP (Eurogroup, 2020). In addition the strategy included two more targeted measures, in which one of these entailed a €37 billion large investment package under the title “Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative” (CRII), which had been brought forth by the Commission (Eurogroup, 2020). The CRII-package opened up for the use of still unallocated budgetary resources based in several cohesion and structural funds, redirecting them toward the EU member states and their most critical affected sectors (European Commission, 2020f). The last part of the three- pillared strategy consisted of, yet another Commission-proposed financial instrument intended to address the mounting socio-economic implications and employment disruptions brought about by the pandemic - “Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency” (SURE) (European Commission, 2020g; Euractiv2020e).

Nevertheless, the strategy had not been accepted without several hard- pressed rounds of negotiations between the member states with the final deal being decided upon on the 10th of April, nearly a month after its initial announcement. Prior to the finalization of the deal, the near one-month long period had been lined with digitized negotiations between the European Council and the Eurogroup which had all fallen short on reaching a deal (Euractiv, 2020f; Euractiv 2020g). This culminated on the 9th of April after a 16-hour long session of negotiations between 19 EU governments. A major argument revolved around the possibility of debt mutualization through jointly issued “corona bonds” proposed by the Italian and Spanish governments, bringing about a bargaining situation reminiscent of the Eurozone crisis. On one side there were the four-nation strong coalition consisting of Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Finland which had staunchly opposed the bonds. On the other, Southern member states such as Italy, Greece, France and Spain had backed the idea of a mutualized debt.

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Even though the latter of the two coalitions, being 14 members strong, had pressured the former to comply they were at a large fiscal disadvantage and stood most to gain from the agreement (Euractiv, 2020f, Politico, 2020f). The northern coalition made their position clear with the Dutch finance minister Hoekstra’s statement:

“Eurobonds is a thing I wasn’t OK with, I am not OK with and I will never be OK with.”, (Politico, 2020f).

Further conflicting points within the agreement had also caused postponements of the strategy. For instance, there had been discussions regarding the practicality of the ESM and the conditions under which its credit could be used. The Dutch and Austrian government had demanded clear, country-specific conditions with coverage limited to that against the pandemic (Euractiv, 2020f, Politico, 2020f, Financial Times, 2020b). Meanwhile, the Italian government had instead prompted, as stated by Italian finance minister Roberto Gualtieri, that:

“conditionality was off the table on the use of ESM financing” (Financial Times, 2020b).

The discussions also included negotiations on the SURE initiative set to support the employment schemes in relation to the pandemic, on which these conditions too had been argued. The Netherlands had demanded that the initiative would come with insurances that it would be a temporary solution, strictly purposed to function during the corona pandemic and further, that it would be expanded to grant broader support than unemployment aid. Spain contested these demands, instead urging that it would be used solely to relieve the effects of unemployment, being the start of a long-awaited relief support instrument. Ultimately, the negotiations ended with the SURE initiative being a temporary solution and a small expansion, with its main

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foci being unemployment support but also including coverage within health sectors (Euractiv, 2020f, Euractiv, 2020g).

4.2.2 The multiannual financial framework On the 23rd of April, the European Council held its fourth videoconference concerning the pandemic and its effects within the Union. During the meeting they commended the newly agreed Eurogroup relief package and presented the next step toward a comprehensive EU-level response:

“We also agreed to work towards establishing a recovery fund, which is needed and urgent. This fund shall be of a sufficient magnitude, targeted towards the sectors and geographical parts of Europe most affected, and be dedicated to dealing with this unprecedented crisis.

We have therefore tasked the Commission to analyse the exact needs and to urgently come up with a proposal that is commensurate with the challenge we are facing.” (European Council, 2020c)

About a month later on the 27th of May, the Commission had introduced the European Parliament with a proposal on the multiannual financial framework (MFF), the EU's long-term budget, set to run from 2021 to 2027. Accompanying this a proposal named Next Generation EU (NGEU), a massive financial stimulus package aiming to encourage the crisis recovery, had also been brought to the table (European Commission, 2020f; European Commission, 2020h). The proposal was according to the Commission itself been an integral part in the comprehensive plan of the European response and recovery:

“The corona virus has shaken Europe and the world to its core, testing our healthcare and welfare systems, our societies and economies and our way of living and working together. People have lost their loved ones and their jobs, while plans and futures have been cast into uncertainty. […] The recovery is likely to be long, but the needs are immediate. A swift agreement on these

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proposals will be a powerful statement of European unity, solidarity and shared sense of direction. Europe’s recovery will be a team effort, from all of us as individuals, to social partners, civil society, business, regions, countries and institutions. This is Europe’s moment and it is time to seize it together.” (European Commission, 2020f p.1)

Together they would accumulate to €1.85 trillion, with €1.100 billion coming from the MFF and around €750 billion from the NGEU-package. The latter would be financed through Commission borrowed money from capital markets. Of these €750 billion, €500 billion would then be allocated as grants and the remaining €250 billion as loans, set to be repaid by member states after 2028. The proposals not only entailed the allocation of resources across seven individual programs, but they were coupled with an additional adjustment proposal on the “Own Resource”, which warranted the raised level of borrowing following the NGEU-initiative. This was, as stated in the budget, a highly temporary measure done closely in relation to the corona crisis (European Commission, 2020f; European Commission, 2020h).

Aside from the complementary €750 billion NGEU-package the budget had been increased to €1.100 billion, after the revision of the declined budget proposition presented by European Council president Charles Michel in February the same year. Three areas in particular are highlighted in the budgetary proposal, amassing over 79% of the total budget - the digitalization of the EU, a greener and more sustainable EU and lastly a cohesive and resilient EU (de Feo, 2020). As a way to improve the future resilience of the EU, the Commission’s propositions had included the introduction of a new stand-alone programme, constituting the core of the proposal, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) worth €560 billion, which acts as the proposals funding implementer, answering for the bulk of member states investment on structural- and reform necessitated to recover. In addition, to increase the short and long-term capacities of the Union the

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Commission presented top ups of the RescEU programme to €3.1 billion and the Horizon Europe research facilitation programme to €94.4 billion as well as a revised plan of the health program brought forward by the European Council in February’s budget negotiations the same year with €9.4 billion with a majority of the funding coming from the NGEU-proposal. The health program, EU4Health, is divided into two strands. One aiming to develop the health security and preparedness of future crises and emergencies, and the other addressing the long-term infrastructure of health systems within member states and throughout Europe (European Commission, 2020f; European Commission, 2020h).

EU members had been quick to confer over the contents in the von der Leyen-Commission’s MFF- and NGEU proposals, calling for the commencement of consultation within the European Council. The EU heads of state met via video conference on the 19th of June to review the proposals and clarify their position on the presented agreement. Michel, president of the European Council comments on the meeting:

“In the first three weeks after the publication of the proposals of the Commission, we had the opportunity to consult the member states to find clarity on the interpretation of those proposals. Now we shift to another phase: we will negotiate.” (European Council, 2020d).

The negotiations reached its apex through the marathon in-person summit held by the European Council in Brussels between the 17th to the 20th of July. Following the four-day summit, and over 90 hours of negotiations (Politico, 2020g), the EU and its member state governments had finally reached an agreement on the 21st of July. During the summit there had been various points of discussion which had divided the member states, bearing similarities to that of the Eurogroup negotiations, largely fixating the negotiations standpoints around two “camps” (Politico, 2020g; Politico,

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2020h, Euractiv, 2020g). The first extensive subject of debate had been the NGEU initiative and the practicalities around it, where perhaps the most polarizing point of discussion had been its financial make up. The original proposal held that €500 billion of the borrowed financing of the initiative should be dispersed as grants to member states and the remaining €250 billion as loans. In contention, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands (the frugal four) as well as Finland demanded that the grant-to debt ratio of the initiative had to be adjusted and respectfully considered (Euractiv, 2020g; Euractiv, 2020h). On the opposite side of the table were once again the corona bond- constellation that constituted Italy, France, Spain, but also Germany which surprisingly seemed to have shifted in its former no- mutualization resolutions (Euractiv, 2020g, Politico, 2020h). The NGEU could be seen as an extension of the Franco-German recovery plan brought to light just about a week earlier by government leaders Macron and Merkel respectively (Politico, 2020i). According in Financial Times (2020c), Merkel’s change of heart rested on a combination of both domestic and legal pressures. The former coming from the worsening economic impacts of Covid-19. Politico (2020j) disclose that multiple national political parties, therein the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), had backed Merkel’s decision to join France. A large part of this support had, according to the same article, been due to the increasing economic damage dealt to the German industries as a result of the restricted internal markets which had restricted industry sector to some of their most important trading partner in Southern Europe (Politico, 2020j). Dieter Kempf, leader of Germany’s largest business lobbying group, the Federation of German Industries (BDI), had in a joint statement with his Italian and French equals declared their standpoints regarding the proposal:

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“In order to limit the damage to business and society from this crisis, we need a strong financial policy response with a strong show of solidarity for the hardest-hit countries.” (Politico, 2020j)

The latter of Merkel’s pressures came from the constitutional court of Germany who challenged the legality in the use of one of ECB’s financial tools. Merkel commented on her and Macron’s plan:

“Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures,” (Politico, 2020i)

Likewise Macron expressed similar discourse on the necessity of a successful comprehensive recovery fund:

“The crisis that we are experiencing is unprecedented and it requires a response which is efficient, collective and above all European.” (Politico,2020i)

At the time of the unveiling of the Franco-German plan, Europe awaited the installation of the crisis stabilization measures that had been decided on the 10th of April by the Eurogroup. While having concluded upon a recovery strategy comprising a total of €540 billion through SURE, the ECCL and rechannelling of Cohesion funds, these had been largely credit-based and had come with certain conditionalities (Eurogroup,2020, Euractiv, 2020i). The results of the Eurogroup negotiations had ended without any decision of the corona bonds, but the idea of jointly mutualized debt as a necessity to fully stifle the crisis had continued to be a hot topic of discussion (Euractiv,2020i). Sharp criticism had directed towards the EU and Commission president von der Leyen personally after she had controversially declared the corona bond- solution “a slogan”, causing great commotion around Europe (Politico,2020k). Politico (2020k) further states that in an attempt to mend the situation, von der Leyen had announced a transformation of the MFF in

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response to the crisis, and a large stimulus package to follow. Commission president von der Leyen and:

“... her team would turn to a little-known and rarely used provision in the EU treaties allowing the bloc to borrow giant sums of money on the financial markets — and provide recovery grants — without adding to the burden of national ledgers, some of which already weigh heavily with debt.” (Politico, 2020k)

At the time, she had turned to the German and French governments, being the largest most politically salient members of the Union, imploring them to assist in the drafting of such a proposal. The Franco-German leadership had not disappointed, having accomplished to present the €500 billion recovery package in May and subsequently managing to spur the MFF- negotiations onward in their favour (Politico, 2020k). While the frugals wanted a loan- only instrument, the final verdict ended on €390 billion in grants, and €360 billion in loans. These resources would be “front loaded” between 2021 to 2024. The agreed repayment plan would be introduced in 2026, running up to 2058 thereby evening out to around (1% of GNP). The extra required financing would through an expanded array of “Own Resources-incomes” (European Council, 2020e; Politico, 2020h).

Secondly, there had been arguments considering both the size and the conditionality of the budget itself. As observed in previous discussions over the MFF throughout the years, there has been a recurring discussion between the so-called “net contributors” and the “net recipients”, grounded in the discrepancy of the “give- and receive ratio”. So also was the case this time as the net contributing- members, headed by the frugals, defended their position on increased budget resource restrictions (Lehner, 2020; de Feo, 2020). With the UK, one of the largest economies (and contributors) of the EU, leaving the Union and the final Brexit-deadline nearing its end, the total fee for each

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member state would increase to fill the budgetary targets (Lehner, 2020; de Feo, 2020). This in addition to the already projected increases of the budget due to the corona pandemic was not acceptable to the majority of the net- contributing members. The original proposal presented by the Commission had sought to annul the rebates given to Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark under the Budget correction mechanisms for the forthcoming budget period (European Commission, 2020h). Instead, as proposed by the European Council president, lump-sum corrections would be given under 2021-2027 to Denmark, Sweden, Austria and the Netherlands in order to pass the remaining agreements (European Council, 2020e). The final decision at the summit landed on €1.037 billion, with the environment, digitalization as well as cohesion and resilience claiming the utmost majority of the budgetary allocations (European Council, 2020e). Nevertheless, the programmes emphasized by the Commission to facilitate the future resilience building of the Union, received rather drastic budget cuts in comparison to the original proposal: EU4Health €1.7 billion, RescEU €1.9 billion and Horizon Europe €75.9 billion. The RRF had although been increased, to €672.5 billion (European Council, 2020e).

Since then, the budget- and NGEU proposals have also passed through the negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council, reaching its conclusion on the 10th of November. This resulted in further adjustments within the budgetary composition of the EU’s flagship programmes with a raise of over €15 billion (Council of the European Union, 2020b). This included the EU4Health programme which received €5.1 billion, a threefold increase in comparison to the allocated resources in the July budget proposition, and the Horizon Europe now topping up at €84.9 billion. This could be done thanks to the redirection fines meant to go back to member states, but instead had been agreed to be placed in the budget to increase the funding for the programmes (Council of the European Union, 2020b).

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Further, during the July summit there was a growing debate around the empowerment of preconditions linked with the utilization of the budgetary resources, including an environmental threshold and the Rule of Law (Politico, 2020h). Concerning the matter of the respects of the Rule of Law, the new proposals had set out to tie the EU-funding closer to the Rule of Law-clause. This meant an introduction of a conditional Rule of Law- mechanism designed to authorize the withdrawal of EU-funding, and even sanction member states, if such breaches were observed - a procedure assessed and adjudicated by the Commission (European Commission, 2020h). The main part of the resistance had been voiced by the Hungarian and Polish leaders Viktor Orban and Mateusz Morawiecki, whom in opposition did not see the need of such linkage - underscoring the need of trust, not demands, between each other (Politico, 2020h, Politico, 2020l). The European Council president Michel had as described by Politico (2020h) “watered down” the link between the Rule of Law by proposing a qualified majority voting on such matters. This would be done through the Economic and Financial Committee rather than leaving it wholly up to the Commission’s decision (Politico, 2020h; Politico, 2020l). The Dutch president Mark Rutter’s proposition to empower each member of the EU to have veto power over the disbursement of EU finances towards irresponsible member states, but this was ultimately omitted before the final agreement had been decided, being replaced by the qualified majority voting proposed by President Michel (Politico, 2020h; Politico, 2020l).

The conflicting point of the Rule of law blossomed up again when Orban and Morawiecki vetoed the budget- and NGEU proposals on Monday the 16th of November, calling for further negotiations on the matter (Euractiv, 2020j). In their viewpoint, the increased legal applicability of the Rule of Law-clause would hinder the functioning of the EU, as indicated by Morawiecki:

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“The use of veto is the baseline scenario. We are faced with a mechanism that, through its arbitrariness, would lead to the fragmentation of the EU. This mechanism is the regulation on the so-called rule of law,”(Euractiv, 2020j)

Morawiecki and Orban had declared their intentions to veto any implementing decisions regarding the change of the Rule of Law, earlier the same month (Euractiv, 2020k). The Slovenian leader Janez Jansa too gave support to the idea of the Rule of Law-mechanism to be more of an obstacle than help for the EU, stating:

“Some political groups… are openly threatening to use the instrument wrongly called ‘rule of law’ in order to discipline individual EU Member States through a majority vote,” (Euractiv, 2020l).

As such, the budget and the NGEU-proposal remain deadlocked in anticipation of a resolution on the matter (Euractiv, 2020j).

4.3 The EU’s way toward a Health Union

4.3.1 Strengthening the EU’s health framework In the wake of the July-negotiations on the 2021-2027 MFF and the NGEU, the European Commission announced its visions of a more integrated and harmonized Union in the face of cross-border threats and emergencies. It was the continuation of a recurring point made in

“For me, it is crystal clear – we need to build a stronger European Health Union. And to start making this a reality, we must now draw the first lessons from the health crisis. [....] it is clearer than ever that we must discuss the question of health competences.” (European Commission, 2020i)

Said EU Commission president von der Leyen in her State of the Union Address, September 16 (European Commission, 2020i). The EU had already

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shown a willingness to invest in the Union’s resilience building and health system development through the 2021-2027 MFF and the NGEU- propositions (European Council, 2020e; Council of the European Union, 2020b). Still, the EU Commission had necessitated the need of expanded competencies within the public health policy area, as well as within crisis management and preparedness (European Commission, 2020i). In her speech, she had mentioned that the ECDC and the EMA as it was today, had not been enough to stifle the pandemic, and would not be enough to hinder any future crises of similar magnitude. Steps were needed to be taken to extend their authorities. Likewise, efforts are to be made to establish a new European Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) similar to the American counterpart (European Commission, 2020i).

The first steps had been taken on the 11th of November, when the Commission presented a strategic communication in which the Commission declares its future ambitions of a unified Health Union (European Commission, 2020j). To follow, the Commission brought three proposals aimed to empower the current health policy framework, financed largely under the EU4Health programme (European Commission, 2020j). The first of these proposals is a repealment of the previous regulation on serious cross- border threats to health, “Decision No 1082/2013/EU” (European Commission, 2020k). The introduction of the new proposition aims to expand the legal space under Article 168(5) of the TFEU, of which the Union can act in the face of cross-border health threats and emergencies (European Commission, 2020k). According to the new proposal, one of the important lessons learnt has been that:

“Structures and mechanisms under the Decision on serious cross-border health threats facilitated the exchange of information on the evolution of the pandemic and supported specific national measures taken, but could do little

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to trigger a timely common EU level response, co-ordinate the crucial aspects of risk communication, or ensure solidarity among Member States, due to the lack of powers and coordination at EU level”. (European Commission, 2020k, p.1)

To achieve this, improvements encompassing a fully binding health strategy on crisis preparedness as well as regularly mandatory operative exercises and subsequent reviews are proposed. The health strategy is to be drafted by the Commission and accepted by the HSC (European Commission, 2020k). Along with this, the Commission proposes more rigid demands on transparency of member states' own national crisis and pandemic strategies, which will include an auditing process by the Commission, the ECDC and relevant EU agencies at a biannual interval (European Commission, 2020k). This is done to ensure and enforce consistency, quality and coordination of the national member state responses to future cross-border health emergencies. Further, the HSC will be granted an extended mandate to enforce crisis-related decisions taken on an EU-level, something it has been struggling with since the outbreak of the pandemic (Brooks and Geyer, 2020). Here, the promised new agency had also been concretized under the name of Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) by the beginning of 2021, set to be operational in 2023 with the motivation that:

” The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need for and value of coordinated EU level action. EU-level advanced purchase agreements for vaccines increase the likelihood that we will exit the crisis together, and stockpiling of medical countermeasures has already lessened its impact. At the same time, the pandemic has revealed structural weaknesses and market failures in our foresight, preparedness and ability to respond coherently, rapidly and appropriately to protect our citizens from health crises.

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COVID-19 is unlikely to be the only global or pan-European health crisis of our century. Anticipating this calls for a dedicated European authority that will strengthen the EU’s preparedness and response capability for new and emerging cross-border threats to human health.” (European Commission, 2020j p.20)

Its mission will be to shoulder the overall strategic management whenever a cross border health emergency and threat is emerging. This includes the facilitation and co-ordination of the available public and private healthcare systems in the Union, as well as the mobilization of the necessary crisis response measures (European Commission, 2020j). The ambition is to:

“…rapidly deploy the most advanced medical and other measures in the event of a health emergency, by covering the whole value chain from conception to distribution and use.” (European Commission, 2020j p.20)

The other two propositions had been regulation propositions by the Commission to extend the EMA and the ECDC respectively (European Commission, 2020l; European Commission, 2020m). The ECDC would, according to the proposal, not only be reinforced in its already existing monitoring and risk assessment abilities, but also be granted new operational abilities. A Health Task Force will be established able to respond at site within member states, should it be deemed necessary (European Commission, 2020l).

The EMA in turn, would be benefited with further capacity to oversee, assess and regulate the development and supply of medical treatment and devices. Several of the impromptu arrangements created in consequence of the corona pandemic have shown great potential in the countering of the virus and are advocated to undergo infrastructural adjustments to be permanently formalised within the agency (European Commission, 2020m). This includes

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the EU Executive Steering Group, set to monitor and coordinate the medical needs within the Union. It also includes the formalisation of the temporarily established EMA pandemic Task Force, giving the agency continued adequate abilities to provide on-site scientific support and advice to member states. Both proposals also declare the possibility of greater synergy between the two agencies, through the establishment of a new channel for communication on clinical trials and scientific research (European Commission, 2020m).

4.3.2 Vaccine development Since the European emergence of the coronavirus, one of the EU’s main concerns have revolved around the realization of an effective treatment against the novel virus, which have remained a core objective of the crisis response and fulfilment of a viable, long-lasting resolution to the pandemic. The Council and the European Council had been quick to call upon the Commission to oversee the EU’s role in the progression of vaccine development, together with the ECDC and the EMA, underlining it a top priority to fully repel the virus (Council of the European Union, 2020a; European Council, 2020b; European Council, 2020c). This also included the assistance in other research areas of the virus, such as virus tracing techniques and large-scale contamination testing. By March, the Commission had put over €140 million euros into 17 different independent research projects, facilitating the research on Covid-19, its constitution and potential treatments (European Council, 2020a). On June the 17th, the Commission presented its plan of action on how to facilitate the research, manufacture and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines within Europe (European Commission, 2020n). The plan is structured into two main components, the first being the establishment of a stable, fair and adequate supply and distribution chain of accepted and completed Covid-19 vaccines. In order to accomplish this, the Commission proposed to sign contracts of advance payment with vaccine producers through the European Support Instrument (ESI). This allows

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producers to finance a large part of upfront costs in the early development, and by using the ESI to do this, the Commission have been able to make the purchases on member states behalf, freeing up the required financing to cover down-payments of the vaccination agreements (European Commission, 2020n). As of November 2020, six promising vaccine contractors are on the table as candidates for distributing treatments for large-scale vaccination (Politico, 2020m). The second part of the plan covers the intended use of the EU’s current medical regulatory framework (European Commission, 2020n). To ensure swift advancements of potential vaccines, the Commission, together with the EMA and the member states will use the framework to its full flexibility, making it easier to authenticate any promising candidates. The strategy also entails measures to support advancements of clinical testing of genetically modified treatments by making temporary adjustments in the current legislation on Gen-modified organisms (European Commission, 2020n; Council of the European Union, 2020c). Nevertheless the Commission also urge the necessity of member state cooperation in order to successfully coordinate an equitable distribution (European Commission, 2020n). Just before the Commission released the plan, a four-member strong “Inclusive Vaccine Alliance”, consisting of Germany, France, The Netherlands and Italy, had come together with the same idea of collectively procuring vaccines themselves – faster than through the Union. According to Politico (2020n) this caused constraints within the EU, as the two groups would contend against each other for the same limited amount of vaccines. Although the Inclusive Alliance agreed to having transferred its €300 million vaccine-deal with AstraZeneca to the Commission in August, the question still stands whether the two groups actually will merge or not (Politico, 2020n; Politico, 2020o; Politico, 2020p).

4.4 Discussion This thesis has sought to shed light on three questions: 1) What measures has the EU taken to respond to the outbreak of Covid-19, 2) which measures

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were taken by the EU within the field of health policy to respond to the outbreak of Covid-19, and 3), has any of these measures affected the prospect of future deepening the European integration project?

In light of the first question, the analysis on the crisis response of the Union have disclosed that multifaceted approaches to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic have been taken, as has been necessitated by the likewise extensive impacts of the Coronavirus.

The, trans-sectoral nature of the Covid-19 crisis supports the logic of a neofunctional explanation to the severity of the pandemic, which have revealed several parts of the current Union’s dependence on an adequately developed health sector, both in legal and in executive terms. This dependence is not only apparent in the economic sector, but also within the transport sector, both of which have been gravely affected by the national measures taken to combat the spreading of the pandemic. These dysfunctionalities correspond with the argumentation of prospective functional spill over indicated by table 1. This is similar with what Niemann & Ioannou (2015) and Schimmelfennig (2017) noted during the Eurozone crisis. Detached monetary and fiscal competencies between the EU and the member states had caused the monetary system to faulter and made the EU inept to give immediate response. In the current crisis, people, goods and services are restrained as a consequence of the mitigation of the spreading of the pandemic. For the time being, the functioning of both Single Market and the Schengen project is forced to rely on a patchwork of temporarily viable solutions such as green lanes and EU guided border controls, until the virus is defeated.

It is clear that the corona crisis has been heavily characterized by intergovernmentalism, especially in the first months of the crisis, leading up to the end of April when the first wave of the virus waned. One of the EU’s primary challenges in the initial stages of the pandemic outbreak, as shown

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through the analysis, has been the formation of cohesive crisis responses in a Union where there has been a lack of solidarity between the member states and visible disinterest in collective efforts to quell the crisis. The continually asymmetrical responses taken by the member state governments illustrate the power dynamics of the crisis where the EU, and the Commission in particular, have been side-lined in favour of that of its member states and their acute preferences. This speaks for the notion of the liberal intergovernmentalist argument of national preferences indicated in table 1, which hold that it is the member states that ultimately dominate the agenda as well as drive, or hinder, the prospects of integration based in relation to their priorities. This is a behaviour which have been noted both in the refugee crisis and the Eurozone crisis, as presented by Schimmelfennig (2018a) and Wien, Börzel and Diez (2019). Simultaneously, the legal room given to the Commission to respond to the crisis has been constrained, as Article 168 within the TFEU limits the Commission’s power to act within complementary bounds of policy making. Despite this, in light of its current powers, the Commission has been able utilize its capacities efficiently. It has managed to coordinate the acquisition and distribution of medical and protective equipment throughout the Union via its joint procurement initiative, putting a halt to the most severe shortages. Likewise it has been able to somewhat harmonize the border management at an EU level, and while national border regulations still occur they do so under more transparent terms. Still, these skilful actions accentuate the Commission’s role as a crisis coordinator and manager, and not a policy entrepreneur per se.

Rather, a substantial part of the responses presented have been in the form of financial alleviation initiatives, shaped at the table of negotiation in the meetings of the Eurogroup discussing the recovery package or at the 2021- 2027 MFF-summit in July. In both cases, there has been clear formations of preference constellations which have bargained for their desired outcomes.

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The more frugal countries (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, The Netherlands and Austria) on one side and on the other side the EU’s southern member states (including Spain, Greece, France and Italy). The frugals, have shown to be in better position of dictating the terms of the agreements, indicating bargaining asymmetry referred to in table 1. This can be explained through the rationale that they stand less to gain of financial responses based in mutualized debt compared to their counterparts as was the case in the Eurozone crisis (Schimmelfennig 2018b; Zaun, 2018). Still, an especially noteworthy finding here has been Germany’s sudden preference change on debt mutualization. After having staunchly resisted the idea of debt mutualization in the Eurogroup-package together with the frugals, Germany themselves present a recovery fund based on joint debt with France just weeks after. When this proposal was later brought to the MFF- negotiations in the form of the NGEU, it stands clear that Germany’s decision to join France have caused the bargaining balance between the frugal countries and the Southern member states to even out. This is congruent with what Finke and Bailer (2019), Frieden and Walter (2019) as well as Schimmelfennig (2015) found in their literature. These authors presented the might of the Franco-German Tandem, which had shown its power in the Eurozone crisis, where the two member states had largely shaped the outcomes of the Eurozone negotiations. The German turn in the mutualization issue does show indications of political spill over, with a limited amount of material referring to the national willingness to introduce a recovery fund to overcome the pandemic, even if it would be based in shared bonds. This included both national support from the political sphere, including the largest of the national parties CDU, as well as from the industrial sphere through BDI. According to the logic of political spill over, this support played a part in allowing the German government to change its position. But there is unfortunately not enough data to build a clear conception of the extent these actors have played in the French-German alliance, and in extension the

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recovery fund. Hungary and Poland both, have also shown to play decisive roles in the outcome of the MFF and the NGEU, through the negotiation on the Rule of Law. Their threats of vetoing the agreements had urged the European Council President Michel to compromise on the Rule of Law conditionality in the July-agreement. Likewise, their actual vetoing of the proposals in November is a clear tactic of coercion to impose further negotiations on the Rule of Law conditionality and potentially ensuring a more favourable outcome.

One could argue that the several instances of conference that has taken place through bodies of intergovernmental structure within the EU could hint towards new intergovernmentalism. Since the very emergence of Covid-19, there have been continual efforts of deliberation and consensus through the Eurogroup, the HSC as well as the European Council through the ICPR to conclude on common responses towards the pandemic. An example of this would be the outcome of the Eurogroup’s three pillar strategy, where the lion’s share of the financial aid responses was made available through the ESM, an intergovernmental de novo structure rather than solely through a supranational institution. As accentuated by the new intergovernmentalist framework, meetings such as these are prominent processes of consensus reaching and in extension, drivers of integration. This notion could be further argued with the with the case of the MFF and the NGEU. The idea on a comprehensive recovery fund had emanated from the European Council, which subsequently called upon the Commission. When the two proposals had been finalized they were again brought to the European Council, the highest political level in the EU as held by the new intergovernmentalist framework, for deliberation at the July-summit. At this point, the Commission’s plan to include the majority of funding of the EU4Health program had been slashed to only include the €1.7 billion from the budget, instead of the combined €9.7 billion from both the MFF and the NGEU.

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Further notions of deliberation and consensus-seeking had been seen during the MFF negotiations between the EP and the Council. The innovative use of the competition fines to redirect funding and boosting the EU’s flagship programmes, therein the EU4Health programme, had allowed the negotiations to move forward.

In contrast however, Von der Leyen’s choice to seek help from the French and German leaders concerning the recovery plan have shown to be a wise choice, as this led to the opportunity for the Commission to gather enough political power to bring the NGEU-proposal to the table just prior to the budget meetings. Within the proposal, a stand-alone programme EU4Health has been introduced with the original budget of €9.4 billion, aimed to strengthen the Union-wide health capacity. This programme accounts for the future enhancement both in terms of crisis preparedness as well as the overall improvement of the health systems within member states. After the Council- EP agreement in November, the funding for this programme is now at €5.1 billion. More than a tenfold increase compared to its previous health-related funding prior to the corona pandemic at around €450 million. Rather than deeming this a functional spill over, the analysis displays greater arguments toward an effect of cultivated spill over. The Commission used clever tactics to ensure a favourable outcome of the proposal. First, as previously mentioned, by using the political momentum of the Franco-German recovery proposal, the Commission could shortly thereafter propose its own instrument, the NGEU. Second, through the connection of the NGEU and the MFF-proposal, the Commission was presented with an opportunity to revise the former health program, while putting the majority of its funding into the recovery fund, rather than the budget. Lastly, the Commission had introduced adjustments on the Own Resources ceilings in the budget. This have provided the EU with means of increasing the budgetary capacity, and to assist in the eventual payoff of the MFF and the NGEU. Further

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indications of neofunctionalism can be argued with the establishment of the self-funded financial instrument SURE, driven forward by the Commission to alleviate the risk of unemployment due to the pandemic. On the same note, the Commission’s initiatives to relocate available structural- and cohesive funds in the budget to power the CRII and using the SGP escape clause could be argued to be the result of a cultivated spill over. All of these initiatives are examples of the Commission’s capacity of driving emergency measures in order to ease the negative macroeconomic effects caused by the containment measures.

Venturing deeper into the nexus of the EU’s crisis response to answer the second research question, the analysis reveals that there are measures specifically related to the health policy area within the EU that have either been taken or are still pending. Early on, the HSC had had used the EWRS to rally the Union against the emerging crisis.

As disclosed by the analysis, the current health framework has proven to be insufficient under the pandemic and consequently needs strengthened capabilities. With the HSC and the ECDC lacking the mandate to use its capabilities to its full potential, which have played a part in the untimely and inept EU-response in the early phase of the pandemic. The consequences of this have been severely strained health systems, an impaired internal market for both people and goods as well as a faltering economy. In later stages, the HSC and ECDC has become more relevant thanks to the EU’s and member states increased ability to coordinate. Nevertheless, the two bodies, including the EMA still do not meet the requirements to mitigate the coronavirus, or face a new cross border health emergency of equal proportions. To rectify this, the EU4Health programme have not only been granted a massively increased budget, but also an expansion of the objectives staked out in comparison to the previous health programmes. This includes both

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enlargements in the frameworks of crisis planning and readiness as well as in long-term infrastructural reformations of Europe’s health systems.

In extension the three proposals brought forward by the Commission in the 11th of November, following the State of the Union speech made by von der Leyen can be argued to be indicators aligning with the neofunctional theory. These proposals represent the first steps taken toward an investment in a future Health Union going under the EU4Health programme. Whereas the first two are set to extend the mandates of the ECDC and the EMA respectively, the third proposition is a revision of the current 2013 Decision on Serious Cross Border Threats to Health. Arguably this can relate to a functional spill over likened to that presented by Niemann & Ioannu (2015) where the EMU was remodelled and extended as a consequence of its original dysfunctionalities uncovered during the Eurozone. However, these proposals are still in their first stages of the policy-shaping processes, and can therefore only be seen as a potential effect of functional spill over as of now. They can, however, be explained through new intergovernmentalism. The issue of strengthening the legal framework of crisis response have been brought up in various instances, including the European Council, the HSC and the Council. If one examines the contents of the proposals closer, there are clear indications of paradoxical integration which reflect this, seen with the empowerment of the HSC, ECDC and the EMA. In doing this, national competence would be transferred to de novo bodies, rather than towards a supranational institution, such as the Commission as described by Bickerton et al (2015 and Puetter (2014). Another visible example of the integration paradox is the proposition to establish a new agency, HERA, which when installed, would shoulder the primary responsibility of crisis coordination and capacity development in future cross border threats and emergencies.

The EU have also managed to establish a coordinated strategy on vaccination delineating the procurement and distribution methods. Significant progress

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has been made in the research of viable treatment and several promising candidates are now in full swing in developing vaccines, being able to overcome the massive up-front financial requirements, thanks to the advanced purchase agreements made through the financing of the ESI. This was made at the initiative of the Commission which welcomed by the European Council as well as the Council. The material suggests that the intergovernmental unilateralism that was present during the first wave of the pandemic, dissipate to some extent later into the crisis, with the increase of members willingness to coordinate. However, there are still visible expressions of national state preferences side-lining the EU’s collective efforts, creating tensions within the Union response. This is noted with the creation of the Inclusive Vaccine Alliance, where Germany, France, The Netherlands and Italy sought other ways of procuring vaccines.

Finally, this analysis is concluded with the question: Has any of these measures affected the prospect of future deepening the European integration project?

The pandemic has forced the EU to adapt to an emergency which up until now has been unknown to the Union, and while its responses in the initial stages have been both slow and haphazard, it has managed to successively regain its composure. The empirical evidence suggests that the measures taken has indeed brought the Union closer through deepened integrative progress of which some is made more incrementally, while other outcomes represent far larger shifts.

One of the largest, and perhaps most surprising, shifts toward European integration has happened in the economic policy area. With the agreement on the NGEU proposal, the EU have introduced a comprehensive recovery fund partly based on joint debts. The recovery fund is stated to be a one-off solution. Yet, with the very first steps now taken, the EU have managed to look beyond its formerly determined path of non-mutualization, a normative

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frame which have been staunchly debated since the Eurozone crisis (Schimmelfennig, 18b). This in comparison to preceding economic responses during the crisis, such as the Eurogroup package and the Commission’s targeted initiatives, which have shown more incremental adaptions through strengthening of already existing structures. Even though the Commission’s decision to trigger the escape clause on the SGP, might influence the member states willingness to return to these targets in the longer run.

Advancements of deepening integration has also been made within the health policy area, through the EU’s revised health programme, EU4Health. Here, the integration is made more incrementally. EU’s competence within the area is still kept predominantly within that complementary boundaries. However, the Commission is set to build a Health Union, with the first blueprints including the extension of the EMA, the ECDC and the HSC respectively, as well as the establishment of a new strategic agency, HERA. Moreover, with more than a tenfold health-related budget increase, one can argue that the potential of further deepened progress happening within the area is looking more likely. Even though it is still unclear what the future might hold for the new Health Union. The vaccine facilitation and procurement initiatives too, have brought incremental integrative progress by the Commission’s initiative to activate the ESI. This have allowed the Commission to coordinate the procurement and distribution of the vaccine on member states behalf. In comparison, the joint procurement initiative used for the procurement of PPE only sanction the procurement but not distribution of the goods.

5 Conclusions

The European Union is no stranger to crises. Yet the outbreak of Covid-19 has come to characterise a new type of crisis/enemy for the European Union, a cross-border health crisis which knows no boundaries and has wrought consequences of unimaginable magnitude within the EU’s health, economic,

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social and transportation policy sectors. As such, the EU has been forced to quickly adapt in order to mitigate and eventually overcome the novel enemy that is the Coronavirus. Therefore, the present thesis has set out to explore the measures taken by the EU to respond to the outbreak of Covid-19. Alongside this, is also an attempt to explore the impact of these measures on the European integration project. These aims are formalized by posing the following three questions: What measures has the EU taken to respond to the outbreak of Covid-19, which measures were taken by the EU within the field of health policy to respond to the outbreak of Covid-19 and has any of these measures affected the prospect of future deepening the European integration project?

Its contribution lies in the field European crisis management, giving further insight into the EU’s crisis coordination- and management abilities in general, and in the health area specifically, a policy sector which previously have been overlooked compared to its economic and security equivalencies.

It furthermore present interesting findings within the field of European integration by tying integrative progress to a novel type of crisis, both in terms of Covid-19 specifically and in the nature of the crisis itself. The research has made use of three theories of European integration, neofunctionalism and liberal and new intergovernmentalism, which combined provide the advantage of explaining different nuances within the EU’s decision-making process during the crisis.

The empirical evidence strongly suggests that despite meeting large initial challenges in coordination and solidarity, the EU has been able to introduce a range of measures in a multitude of various policy-sectors. From these, indications on deepening integration of both incremental and significant kinds can be derived.

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Neofunctionalism have uncovered present discrepancies between the health policy sector and the socio-economic and transport sectors, which have been forced to rely on temporary border guidance and introduced green lanes as a consequence of unilateral border regulations. This have brought question to the continued functioning of the Single market and the Schengen project. To this, liberal intergovernmentalism might well explain the unilateral behaviour a reaction of acute national preferences, which further into the crisis seem to return to a more collected sense.

Liberal intergovernmentalism show further prominence in the explanation of responses taken in the economic arena. Here member states have shown to have large impact on the outcomes of both the Eurogroup package, and later the MFF- and NGEU proposals. In the case of the Eurogroup package, evidence indicate the return of previously seen preference constellations which have been based in a north – south context where the former has been able to dictate the terms of the economic responses, leading to new adaptions of existing tools to allow for economic cushioning. Whereas the creation of the Franco-German alliance has shown to be particularly important in galvanizing the agreements on the MFF and the NGEU by tipping the bargaining balance in favour of the southern coalition. Thus, through the NGEU, the EU has taken a significant leap toward European integration within the economic arena by allowing the introduction of joint debt issuance to fund large parts of the recovery fund.

From a neofunctional perspective, findings show the Commission to be an equally decisive actor in the economic policy sector through cultivated spill over. In the early moments of the crisis it not only managed the introduction of an employment financial aid instrument, SURE, but also initiated the relocation of current left-over budget funds toward the response of the Coronavirus. Further indication of cultivated spill over are noted with the MFF and the NGEU proposals, where the Commission took strategic steps to

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ensure the success of the two propositions. It had sought the help of France and Germany in order to give the NGEU the political momentum it needed to succeed at the July-negotiations and had proposed creative adjustments on the Own Resources policy, which allowed for raised budget ceilings.

In the health policy area, the current health framework is now at question, after being rendered insufficient as a consequence of the limited efficiency of the HSC, the ECDC and the Commission which has partly been a consequence of the unilateral behaviour of member states and partly due to insufficient legal space to enforce coordinated and comprehensive actions. Like in the economic policy area there is clear evidence of deepened integration, with the financing, procurement and distribution of vaccines now being directed fully at EU level, by Commission’s initiative of advanced purchase agreements. It is further seen with the new €5.1 billion EU4Health programme which stake out a larger role for the EU to play in the Union’s short- and long-term management of crisis preparedness and health system reinforcements. To boot, the Commission is committed to build a Health Union, with pending legal extensions concerning the ECDC and the EMA and a fully new agency set to shoulder the strategical coordination and capacity development in future crises similar to the pandemic, HERA. This integration has manifested itself through means of the integration paradox, with the building blocks of the Health Union relying on the strengthening of de novo bodies rather than supranational institutions.

This thesis is not without its limitations, but it is nonetheless a good starting point from which several avenues of research are now open for further exploration. By choice, the present thesis has not taken the EU’s role in the international crisis response into consideration. As such, EU’s contribution to the international vaccine initiative, COVAX, as well as its interplay in the international domains are neglected. These are both suitable considerations for future analysis. Also by choice, the thesis has limited itself to focus on

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the Commission as the sole supranational agent and have not considered the roles played by the European Court of Justice, the European Central Bank or the European Parliament the responses taken to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic. Undoubtedly, these institutions too are integral parts in the outcome of the comprehensive pandemic response and should therefore provide for excellent continuation of this present thesis.

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