Public policy responses to COVID-19 in Europe

This introductory article to the European Policy Analysis special issue on “Public Policy Responses to COVID-19 in Europe” proceeds through four parts. Part I presents an abbreviated timeline of how the COVID-19 pandemic first emerged in China in late 2019, its recorded arrival in Europe in February, and the lockdown measures and public policy responses which followed during the first six months of 2020. Part II briefly reviews some of the contributions that an analysis of the public policy responses to COVID-19 in Europe might make to the debates in the social sciences. Part III briefly presents potential areas for future research that lie beyond the limited scope of this issue. Part IV introduces each of the fifteen contributions that follow.

On 31 December 2019, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission in Wuhan City, Hubei province, China, reported a cluster of 27 cases of pneumonia which were said to be linked to a wholesale fish and live animal market in the city. The first recorded cases of what would become known as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the virus that causes it (the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 -SARS-CoV-2¹) was confirmed in China in early January. The genetic sequence of the virus was shared publicly on 11–12 January shortly after the first death had been recorded in China—that of a 61-year-old man with underlying health conditions. By 13 January Thailand had recorded its first case—the first outside of China—and by 20 January human-to-human transmission of the disease was confirmed by the Lancet medical journal (Chan et al., 2020).

The first cases of COVID-19 in Europe were recorded in France and Germany on 24 and 28 January 2020, respectively. In each case, infections related to persons who had recently traveled from China. On 26 January, the Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)—an independent EU agency responsible for strengthening Europe's defenses and preparedness against infectious diseases—reported that there was “a high likelihood” of cases being imported into those European countries with the greatest volume of people traveling to and from Wuhan and Central China (ECDC, 2020) and on 30 January the World Health Organisation (WHO) designated the outbreak of novel coronavirus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) (WHO, 2020a).

Over the coming weeks, several European countries implemented screening measures for travelers arriving from China and many airlines suspended flights to and from the region altogether in a bid to limit the spread of infection. On 04 February, a first major outbreak of COVID-19 was recorded outside of China on board the Diamond Princess, a British-registered cruise ship. The ship, along with its passengers and crew, was quarantined for almost a month in the Port of Yokohama in Japan. By mid-March, more than 700 of the 3,711 on board had tested positive for COVID-19, accounting for more than half of the recorded infections outside of China, and at least seven passengers died with the illness in the following month (Mallaparty, 2020).

By mid-February, amid increasing cases of human-to-human transmission around the globe, the ECDC considered the risk for capacity in European healthcare systems to be overwhelmed by any outbreaks of COVID-19 at the peak of the influenza season (typically between November and April in the northern hemisphere, which includes Europe) to be “low to moderate,” while the risk to the health of visitors and residents in areas with elevated rates of infection to be high.

On 22 February, in what was the first major case of community transmission in Europe—that is, where infection was not associated with travel to an infected region—Italian authorities reported clusters of COVID-19 across northern Italy in the regions of Lombardy, Piedmont, and Veneto. In a bid to better understand the nature of the virus, including its symptoms and methods of transmission, and the potential for prevention and containment, ECDC and WHO began a joint twelve-day mission to the region on 24 February. By the start of March, ECDC had identified the risk associated with COVID-19 infection in Europe to be moderate to high, based on the probability of transmission and the impact of the disease.

On 08 March, the Italian government became the first in Europe to introduce restrictions on movement and to impose social distancing requirements in the country's most affected regions. The measures were extended to cover the whole country on 11 March as the reproductive rate of the virus increased—the same day the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak to be a global pandemic (WHO, 2020b). In the weeks that followed, most other European countries introduced similar public health measures in a bid to combat the spread of the virus.

The suite of COVID-19 responses introduced by policy-makers across Europe was broadly similar, involving restrictions on economic activity, the promotion of social distancing, and the interdiction of large gatherings, and typically included the closure of schools, universities, and businesses that were deemed non-essential. While broadly similar in nature and design, the modalities, specificities, and duration of restrictive measures differed markedly, as did the timing of their introduction. Most European governments introduced legislative measures to underpin the measures by mid-March, including in France, Germany, and Spain, while a handful of governments opted not to, aiming instead to promote voluntary practices to halt the spread of the disease and to reach for “herd immunity,” whereby society would gain immunity through widespread exposure, as occurred in Sweden and the United Kingdom (see Petridou, 2020; Colfer, 2020a. It is now clear that the introduction of lockdown measures across Europe early-on in the pandemic saved millions of lives (NIHR, 2020).

Meanwhile, as the pandemic took hold, economic activity fell, supply chains seized up, and tax revenues dwindled. European and US stock markets reported historic losses throughout the first half of the year as the IMF predicted a deep recession in 2020 and a slow recovery in 2021, with global output projected to decline by almost 5% (Gopinath, 2020). At the same time, government expenditure on healthcare and social protection rose dramatically, as unemployment in the EU rose to 7.4% in August (Eurostat, 2020) and many workers were temporarily laid off. In what may be one of the most enduring structural changes brought about by the pandemic, up to 40% of the European workforce began working from home, at least in part, while many frontline workers in healthcare, transport, and delivery services were unable to do so (Ahrendt et al., 2020).

At the time of writing (October 2020), there have been over 34 million recorded cases of COVID-19 and over 1 million deaths associated with the disease globally, of which more than 5 million cases of infection and more than 200,000 deaths have been in Europe. Over only a few weeks, the pandemic introduced fundamentally new economic, political and social realities across the globe. Government responses, and the nature of their implementation, present important questions and lessons for the practice and study of public policy. This episode has also laid bare the capacity, preparedness, and willingness of policy-makers in Europe and elsewhere to respond to an unanticipated crisis as it develops. In particular, differing levels of capacity in healthcare and social protection systems became apparent as the crisis unfolded.

The analysis of the onset of COVID-19, and the public policy measures mobilized in Europe in response to it, contribute to a range of related and overlapping debates in the social sciences. This includes as regards: the role of the state; how policy-makers respond to crises; the nature of political behavior; the legitimacy of public policy; and the future of the EU, to give only a few examples.

COVID-19 has ushered in a new era of state-sponsored and state-directed activity around the globe, and the crisis has seen a changing and increasing role for public policy in the day-to-day lives of most Europeans. Arguably this episode provides an opportunity to assess the role and functioning of state institutions and programs in people's lives—and even to reimagine what the fundamental role of the state can be in the 21st century.

The capacity of states to manage and oversee lockdowns, including by meeting the surge in demand for intensive care beds and personal protective equipment (PPE) in hospitals and care settings, as well as the enormous social protection costs associated with supporting citizens experiencing a sudden loss of income, was exposed during the initial months of the pandemic (Hassenteufel, 2020). This gave rise to debates about the prospect of fiscal burden-sharing between member states in the EU, as we shall see (Camous & Claeys, 2020; van Overbeke & Stadig, 2020). The early stages of the pandemic also tested the resilience of state institutions and their ability to function without permanent or stable governments following inconclusive elections, as was the case in both Belgium and Ireland. The pandemic in Europe also provided a number of examples of multicentric (Neuvonen, 2020) and multi-level governance in action as some states tailored responses to the specific needs and interests of different communities, regions, and devolved authorities, as was the case for example in Italy and the UK (see Colfer, 2020b; Malandrino & Demichelis, 2020).

Building on this, an analysis of public policy responses to COVID-19 in Europe can contribute to the crisis management literature (Boin et al., 2017; Brändström & Kuipers, 2003; Drennan et al., 2014). For example, COVID-19 shows how a similar set of circumstances—in this instance, the onset of a global health crisis—can be managed and framed differently across various polities and political contexts. For example, 't Hart (2014) argues that crises may be best understood as situational in nature, involving events and forces that are largely exogenous and temporary, or institutional in nature, involving factors that are more fundamental, intrinsic and deep-seated, and it is possible that a situational crisis could evolve into or merge with an institutional one. For example, in the case of Cyprus, lesson-learning from the early Chinese experience of COVID-19 is said to have allowed that country to prevent a situational crisis from morphing into an institutional disaster as the country's policy response prevented public services from becoming overwhelmed (Petridou et al., 2020).

Relatedly, an analysis of public policy responses to COVID-19 can reveal much about political behavior, and how leaders deal with uncertainty, risk, and expertise. Risk and uncertainty are an inherent part of policy-making, and managing risk and the unknown is central to what modern governments do (Clapton, 2011; Colfer, 2020a; Versluis et al., 2019). Especially during crises, the functioning of governing institutions is tested and policy-makers must often make complex judgments with imperfect information, under great uncertainty, time pressure, and heightened levels of scrutiny (Malandrino & Demichelis, 2020; Svedin, 2011). Faced with a crisis like COVID-19, governments could pursue a “blame avoidance strategy,” designed to depoliticize an issue and to share or avoid responsibility, or a “credit claiming strategy” when fighting for validation and political survival (Hood, 2007, 2011). The pandemic presents opportunities to understand how and why governments seek to avoid blame or take credit by focusing on questions of agency, presentation, and policy-making under COVID-19 (Zahariadis et al., 2020).

The pandemic also raises questions about the role of experts in determining public policy. There is inevitably tension between scientific and public health considerations and economic realities when undertaking policy-making during a pandemic. Dewey (2012 pp. 152–160) argue that decision-making should rely primarily on the advice of experts (see also Blumer, 1948 and Lippmann, 1997) and van Nispen and Scholten (2017) posit that turbulent times can present opportunities for policy-makers to use expert knowledge in the contested and politicized setting of a crisis. The extent to which public policy responses to COVID-19 were based on health, political, or economic imperatives, and the extent to which politicians or unelected experts were to the fore in framing political messaging, varied considerably across Europe and had a major bearing on the nature and timing of decisions.

COVID-19 can also reveal something about how citizens respond to restrictive public policy measures, and whether policies made under crisis conditions are perceived as legitimate or can become politically contested. Under COVID-19, in some cases at least, it was clear that, when faced with a common external threat, initial restrictions were met with approval by a majority of citizens and a “rally round the flag” effect was recorded which favored incumbents (Baker & O'Neal, 2001). However, as the initial uncertainty of the crisis gave way to “the new normal,” and as states of emergency endured, support for limitations on economic and social activity began to drop in some quarters (Naumann et al., 2020). This was framed in part by the extent to which polices are seen as legitimate (Mettler & Soss, 2004) and the experience of the confinement policies clearly feed back into the political process by altering political attitudes and public risk perceptions (Pierson, 1993; Skocpol, 1992) as, over time, people can adapt their perceptions, having first overestimated their chances of being infected (see Breznau, 2020; Naumann et al., 2020).

The public policy responses to the pandemic inevitably undermine civil liberties and fundamental rights in the interest of public health. Vocal resistance in some quarters to certain aspects of the lockdown measures have been registered, be it against face-coverings or restrictions on public gatherings, for example, in Germany (see Naumann et al., 2020) or from interest groups advocating for a different balance between economic and social interests, as has been seen in Switzerland (see Sager & Mavrot, 2020). Indeed, there is always the possibility of emergency restrictions being used to justify arbitrarily curtailing civil liberties, making this balance an important subject for democratic oversight and scholarly attention (see Adam, 2020; Neuvonen, 2020).

COVID-19 struck as the EU had entered its second decade of crisis, following the fallout from the post-2008 economic and social crises, the refugee crisis since 2015, impending climate chaos, ongoing tensions on many of Europe's borders, and the protracted withdrawal of the UK since 2016 to name a few of the most prominent challenges facing the bloc.

Aside from the serious public health and social protection challenges the pandemic poses, it is clear that the introduction of emergency measures at any time poses a danger of democratic backsliding and of the prospect of arbitrary and authoritarian political action, especially in some of Europe's more fragile democracies (see Adam, 2020; Shehaj, 2020). Separately, the onset of COVID-19 has underscored the central role of intra-EU migration and on the importance of seasonal workers especially to sustain many key industries including agriculture and food production (Paul, 2020).

Given the far-reaching socio-economic impact of COVID-19, the cohesion of the EU's common market and the sustainability of the bloc's monetary union was clearly threatened by the pandemic (Camous & Claeys, 2020). Despite this, the EU moved to provide rescue funds in the form of grant aid to the regions worst affected by the crisis through the “Next Generation EU” recovery instrument—amid fierce resistance from several northern member states, with The Netherlands being among the most vocal. Crucially, the instrument will be financed from funds borrowed on financial markets by the Commission on behalf of the EU and represents a nascent fiscal union at EU level—and one of the most important steps forward in EU integration in a generation (Colfer, 2020b; Commission, 2020). This stands in stark contrast to the machinations and prevarications around the failed attempts at a coordinated response to the eurozone and migration crises over the previous decade, and represents an important area for further research and analysis.

Many of the themes discussed in this short introduction—and many more besides—are explored, analyzed, and interrogated in the individual contributions in this special issue. There are many more debates and themes that a focused analysis such of this cannot meaningfully deal with—given that the contributions in this issue concentrate on public policy responses to COVID-19 in Europe in the first six months of 2020. However, we hope that this issue can provide a foundation on which future research can be built.

Future research with a broader temporal lens may focus on a range of issues and themes of importance for public policy that are not covered in depth in this issue. In the near term, the impact of the pandemic on the mental and physical health of the citizenry and on the social inequalities that existed before the period of confinement will require urgent public policy attention, as will the longer-term impact of COVID-19 on the labor market and the future of work. The need for this is highlighted by the prominent role played by frontline workers in keeping society functioning throughout the pandemic and given the potentially increasing shift toward tele-working for many Europeans (Hurley et al., 2020). How to promote the health and safety of especially frontline workers and how to regulate and support an increasingly remote workforce will be of particularly pressing concern.

The way the pandemic changes how we use towns and cities and how transportation and housing are planned under COVID-19 will require innovative policy solutions. Matters of privacy, as huge amounts of personal data are stored online in new ways, for example, with contact-tracing technologies, will require constant scrutiny and democratic oversight (Zuboff, 2019). The delivery of a vaccine—should one be found—will likely entail one of the greatest logistical undertakings in human history, and future research must explore how supply chains must be reformed to meet the needs of the COVID-19 economy. Relatedly, restrictions on movement, the prospect of “vaccine nationalism,” the need for migrant labor, and the potential aforementioned disruptions to supply chains, may require new foreign policy and diplomatic solutions that research might inform.

Finally, the impact of the pandemic has been experienced differently across the generations—as older generations are faced with the greatest social and health burden of COVID-19, while younger people and newer labor market entrants must deal with the second recession in a decade and the prospect of economic marginalization and social exclusion—which will require creative, robust, and sustainable policy responses.

This special issue reviews public policy responses to COVID-19 in more than twenty European countries in the first months of the coronavirus crisis from January to July 2020. This period includes the point when the WHO declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020, when most European countries first introduced limitations on social and economic activity that were designed to halt the spread of the virus, and when governments began to loosen restrictions from mid-May onwards.

While in no way exhaustive, this issue presents a picture of how the initial stages of the COVID-19 crisis were handled by policy-makers across a range of different European countries and contexts, including in: Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the Western Balkans, as well as in China and at the level of the Eurozone. Each contribution reviews the public policy responses in these countries and seeks to contextualize the actions taken by policy-makers within their national and regional settings, and to connect these actions to wider debates in the social sciences.

The contributors to this issue come from a range of disciplines and backgrounds, including from economics, international relations, law, political science, and public policy, and are based in more than twenty universities across Europe and North America. The issue builds on a webinar held at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University in May 2020,² and most of the contributors were visiting fellows at Harvard during the 2019–2020 academic year. The remainder of this section briefly reviews each of the contributions that make up this special issue.

Italy was one of the countries most affected by the outbreak of COVID-19, and became the first European country to initiate both a regional and national lockdown in the wake of the health crisis. Malandrino and Demichelis (2020) review how the government's prompt response to the public health emergency brought with it a high degree of uncertainty concerning the allocation of decision-making powers along the central-local government continuum and regarding the exercise of administrative tasks by public authorities. The article shows how this produced conflict and variation within the policy-making and policy-delivery processes in Italy. To show this, the authors first consider the allocation of decision-making power between central, regional and local authorities and, secondly, they examine the organization of trials by judicial authorities. The ensuing analysis, based on both political science and public law, rests upon the examination of policy documents and case law, and allows for an examination of the Italian response to the crisis as a case in which the lack of institutional coordination ultimately produced uncertainty, which in turn affected policy-makers, policy-deliverers, and policy-takers.

Patrick Hassenteufel (2020) considers how the COVID-19 crisis was handled in France by examining policy changes and failures in the state's centralized public health system. Hassenteufel argues that the government's response is at least partly underpinned by the legacy of a previous health crisis, that of H1N1 in 2008, which was widely viewed as a costly overreaction, and which led to the dismantling of the agency devoted to responding to sanitary emergencies and epidemics. This partly explains why French health authorities were badly prepared for the crisis, as exhibited by the lack of PPE, tests, and intensive care beds when the pandemic hit, as well as by the relatively large number of infections and fatalities in the country. The author considers a second factor that shaped public policy responses in France, namely, the centralization of political and administrative authority in the country, especially as regards the concentration of decision-making and of responsibility for implementing crisis-induced measures, which did little to address regional particularities. The paper also raises the question of the impact of COVID-19 on future health policy-making in France, and on the increasingly contested role of especially elite senior civil servants in the development of health policy (Hassenteufel & Genieys, 2020).

Royo (2020) analyses the case of Spain, one of the countries worst affected by the pandemic in terms of rates of infection and fatalities. The article examines the consequences of the crisis for Spain and analyses the central government's approach to the pandemic by focusing on the political and structural factors that hindered a more timely and coordinated response in that country.

Colfer (2020a) compares the public policy responses to COVID-19 in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Despite their geographical proximity, these countries took markedly different approaches in the early stages of the crisis. The Irish government moved swiftly to introduce restrictions on movement and social activity and introduced a nationwide lockdown on 12 March in line with most of the rest of Europe. Meanwhile, after a slow initial response with plans for herd immunity, the United Kingdom started introducing restrictions only on 20 March and quickly became a world leader in cases of COVID-19. An analysis of these cases reveals different views of sovereignty, the role of experts, and how risk is perceived by policy-makers that defined the ‘countries’ initially divergent approaches to the crisis. Meanwhile, as the pandemic developed, the responses to the pandemic in different parts of the UK diverged considerably, as the leaders of the devolved governments reached different political judgements on when to introduce or modify restrictions. This raises questions about the efficacy of devolution in the country, and regarding the UK's constitutional integrity.

Sager and Mavrot (2020) consider the public policy response to the pandemic in Switzerland, identifying what they see as “corporatist inertia” in that country's crisis decision-making processes. As occurred elsewhere in Europe, the Swiss federal government moved relatively rapidly to introduce measures to limit the infection rate and to protect at-risk populations. However, while the executive untypically heavily relied on (mainly) health experts within and outside the administration when designing and implementing the country's lockdown measures, the reopening strategy shows clear features of Swiss neo-corporatism, as the government's approach to exiting the lockdown was clearly marked by primarily economic concerns, following successful lobbying by vested interests in the hospitality sector, most notably by Gastrosuisse—a representative body for restaurants. The authors conclude that in Switzerland, institutional paths prevail even when interrupted by a state of emergency such as COVID-19.

Meanwhile COVID-19 presented Europe with an unprecedented challenge. While the virus proved itself to be transnational in nature, not taking heed of borders, government responses were largely national. Still, governments soon found themselves engaged in complex multi-level policy cooperation at the national, subnational, and supranational levels. In their paper, Van Overbeke and Stadig (2020) look at the crisis response in the Low Countries (Belgium and the Netherlands) to understand the impact of that process on the political system. The authors argue that efficient multi-level policy cooperation in both countries has run up against the limits of existing institutions, leading to significant political grievances. In Belgium, slow negotiation between the central and regional governments calls the federal system into question while in the Netherlands, the absence of European institutions tasked with fiscal policy coordination has increased the salience of the EU fiscal sphere once again in public discourse.

The Swedish response to COVID-19 —which was initially to pursue “herd immunity” without the imposition of restrictive measures on economic and social activity—stands out not only from other European countries, but also from other Scandinavian countries that are geographically proximate and culturally similar. The question that emerges from an analysis of the Swedish case concerns the reasons why the country chose to take such a relatively liberal response to the onset of the pandemic compared with most of the rest of Europe. Petridou (2020) treats the national response to the pandemic in Sweden as the outcome variable, which she seeks to explain through an analysis of the intersection of dualism in the model of Swedish public administration and the devolved governance system that bestows operational autonomy on public agencies and local public authorities. The duality that characterizes the relationship between politics, policy, and administration in Sweden resulted in an initial set of responses that was necessarily decentralized. The decentralized response in conjunction with high political trust among the citizenry, necessitated, and was conducive to, broad guidelines rather than restrictive measures. The author concludes with a discussion that places the Swedish response in perspective for further comparative research.

Neuvonen (2020) outlines how Finland's initial policy response to COVID-19 blended the government's use of delegated emergency powers with legislative instruments adopted by the national parliament. The article first explores the interaction between executive decision-making powers, scientific expertise, and the review powers of the parliamentary constitutional law committee in the promulgation of COVID-19 policy. The empirical analysis shows how policy-making during the state of emergency raised particular concerns about parliament's access to information and regarding the transparency of public policy-making. This case is then considered in the context of complex multicentric policy-making, and whether the quest for transparency-led accountability by Finland's central government produces a rupture in the complexity theory in the emergency conditions.

Using 't Hart's (2014) typology of crises, Petridou et al. (2020) explore the Cypriot public policy response to COVID-19. Facing a situational crisis, the Cypriot authorities drew lessons from the Chinese experience to prevent the onset of the virus from turning into a full-blown institutional disaster. The main difference between situational and institutional crises, 't Hart maintains, is that the former concerns events that are largely considered exogenous but temporary, while institutional crises more directly concern intrinsic institutional faults, long-term neglect, and a general malaise that is brought into sharp relief during a crisis. The lessons the Cypriot authorities drew from the Chinese experience of COVID-19 involved the impact of non-decisions, the relatively free flow of information, and the degree of expert involvement in shaping the response plan. The article concludes with reflections on what this might mean for public leadership under crisis.

Zahariadis et al. (2020) look at the cases of Greece and Turkey, and how leaders and policy-makers may try to “avoid blame” or “take credit” in times of crisis, uncertainty, and political volatility. Using a framework developed by Hood (2011) and adapting it with insights from Brändström and Kuipers (2003), the article explores the factors behind the use of three types of accountability strategies—presentational, policy, and agency—within the auspices of public policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis in these countries. The authors situate the comparison in the current political context and conclude with implications for political survival as leaders attempt to balance public accountability, political expediency, and public health during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, focusing on Hungary, Adam (2020) contends that in the early phase of the crisis, more authoritarian governments were better equipped to perform adjustment policies than their liberal democratic counterparts. Under authoritarian conditions, the author argues, lockdown measures are easier to impose, and economic and social activity is more easily monitored. Yet, authoritarianism always comes at a cost, and this might be particularly evident in a global pandemic that requires genuine cooperation among public and private agents. In Hungary, and across Europe, the pandemic caused a dramatic drop in aggregate demand. The natural reaction by governments to such a situation is to introduce counter-cyclical fiscal policies, utilizing available policy space. If, however, policy space turns out to be limited due to prior pro-cyclical policies, a lack of market confidence, and/or a lack of willingness by governments to be exposed to market financing, fiscal policy cannot perform this function. This indeed occurred in the context of the Hungarian public policy response to COVID-19 that—perhaps not accidently—included extraordinarily wide government prerogatives that clearly infringe upon fundamental civil rights and core EU liberties.

Historically, governments have tackled pandemics as external, nonconventional security threats, often restricting travel and immigration to protect citizens from contagious outsiders. Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries could not frame COVID-19 in this way because European integration and free-movement migration blur the line between insiders and outsiders in those countries. With a focus on the case of Romania, and with reference to Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary and the Czech Republic, Paul (2020) examines the conditions and coalitions that shaped policy outcomes and argues that migration systems played a double role in policy change: as structures for policy diffusion and as venues for migrants' agency. Governments learned from one another's experiences, but diffusion occurred unevenly according to a country's position within migratory systems.

Shehaj (2020) examines the economic and political implications of the COVID-19 crisis for the post-communist states of the Western Balkans. Focusing on Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia, this article assesses how factors including: the sudden increase in governments' decision-making authority brought about by the pandemic; the degree of effectiveness of domestic opposition forces; and the amount of fiscal inflows to these countries' from the EU, IMF, and other international organizations shaped patterns of accountability and electoral behavior in the early months of the pandemic. Via an empirical assessment of the relationship between government accountability and EU allocations in the pre-pandemic period, this article argues that while beneficial in the short term, in the long run, pandemic-related fiscal inflows risk enabling state capture and inadvertently jeopardizing the Western Balkans' post-pandemic democratic prospects.

Drawing on survey data, Naumann et al. (2020) at the University of Mannheim assess public support for COVID-19 containment policies in Germany. The authors first summarize the main policies during the first 6 weeks of restrictions and then, relying on data from the German Internet Panel (GIP) survey, show how public support for the most important crisis-induced policies has been changing. In so doing, the article focuses on the pressing matter of the social and political consequences of the confinement policies. Drawing on democratic theory, the article considers the degree to which the crisis-induced measures were seen as legitimate or not by a representative sample of citizens. Clearly, this is important for policy-makers as the extent to which a policy is seen as legitimate often presupposes whether people follow that policy. The authors' analysis ultimately shows that, following initial widespread support for the lockdown measures in March, support for limitations on economic and social activity fell continuously.

The onset of COVID-19 highlighted many of the fragilities and economic divergences within the Eurozone. Camous and Claeys (2020) review the measures taken by the European institutions in the initial stages of the pandemic and discuss whether these were appropriate to mitigate the uneven consequences of the economic crises as they developed. The article first reviews how established institutions developed emergency responses. These include the European Central Bank (ECB) extending its asset purchase programs and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) offering credit lines to struggling member states. This extreme situation and conflictual political environment which ensued paved the way for a swift and unexpected institutional development: a first step towards a fiscal union, with transfers between countries and common debt issuance. This innovation proved to be politically divisive, especially for net contributor countries. This article concludes this issue by reflecting on what this might mean for the future of Europe.