Towards Increasing Unity and Continuing Executive Predominance Within the E(M)U Post-COVID?

Abstract

The eurocrisis led to significant reforms being conducted in the field of the European Union’s (EU’s) Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In this framework, Member States executives, and Heads of States and Governments meeting in the European Council especially, played a key role, although the European Central Bank was long the ‘only game in town’. As a result of this and other evolutions witnessed over the past decade, the gap between euro area and EU28(7) appeared to be ever-widening when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. This article analyses the institutional balance among E(M)U institutions in the immediate response to the pandemic, how this compares to the management of the eurocrisis, and how it may be expected to play out in the implementation of the measures adopted. It finds that, this time around, a wide range of EU institutions and bodies, and the Member States, mobilized swiftly and that Member States executives played a key role again. It also shows that significant trends in favour of greater unity within the E(M)U exist. Economic and Monetary Union, European Banking Union, Executive predominance, Eurogroup, European Council, Euro Summit, Euro area, COVID crisis, eurocrisis