Abstract
Draghi’s short sentence appeased the financial markets and by and large the Member States followed the credo and established the Banking Union 3 The crisis to be managed had a limited focus – monetary and fiscal policy – with broad implications for the economy and society in the European Union (EU) and the Member States, however In the potential euphoria surrounding new perspectives, it should not be forgotten that the current crisis management by the EU Member States relies on the full functioning of key economic sectors – food production and supply, banking, healthcare, transport, the Internet, energy – more often than not provided by multinational, transnational corporations, national incumbents and supermarket chains There will be lessons to learn as to who will benefit from the crisis – Member State politics, national governments, multinationals, online business, transport of goods – and who will suffer: the EU as an institution, the European legal order based on the four freedoms and competition, national parliaments, small and medium-sized companies and non-essential economic sectors In his letter to P van Parijs, Rawls asks whether “meaningless consumerism” could be a legitimate aim for the EU and for a European society 10 Davies and Taguri highlight the societal and cultural implications of ever-increasing consumer choice in the Internal Market 11 The one-sided promotion of online business, which empties our cities and transforms physical communication into online orders, is just one visible expression of what is excluded from the toolbox of European law – not only to investigate potential gains in economic growth through increased efficiency and increased effectiveness of political objectives through fully harmonising European private law rules, but also to seriously look into their impacts on society
Highlights
In Carl Schmittian language, the -president of the European Central Bank seized on the “state of emergency”[2] to constitute a new European Economic Constitution based on the premise of financial stability
The COVID-19 threat has opened a window of opportunity for transgressing boundaries, for thinking the unthinkable: a fundamental revision of the European Economic Constitution and therewith European private law
The longer the shutdown lasts, the stronger the voices will be to return to normal, to bring people back to work, to get the economy going again; and the more the political debate around crisis management turns to its economic implications, the easier it will become for the European Union (EU) to gain ground again and to integrate national crisis management into the European legal order and into the set of competences the EU has and that allows it to manage the economic effects of the COVID-19 threat
Summary
Not even five years ago, Mario Draghi proclaimed: “Within our mandate, the [European Central Bank] is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro”.1 In Carl Schmittian language, the -president of the European Central Bank seized on the “state of emergency”[2] to constitute a new European Economic Constitution based on the premise of financial stability. The COVID-19 threat dictates the order of assistance – health first, money; society first, the economy second This order demonstrates and explains the weakness of the EU as a quasi-state with a quasi-constitutional legal order built around enumerated powers and the still-remaining foundational powers of the Member States as the guardians of the Treaty in terms of the management of societal crises. The COVID-19 Threat online business, transport of goods – and who will suffer: the EU as an institution, the European legal order based on the four freedoms and competition, national parliaments, small and medium-sized companies and non-essential economic sectors. A stocktaking will be needed on what remains of the European legal order after COVID-19 and whether and to what extent the state of emergency the Member States have proclaimed could be brought into line with EU law This is the kind of clean-up that lawyers are accustomed to doing as a repair service for society and the economy
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