The EU’s initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic: disintegration or ‘failing forward’?

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the European Union’s initial response (March–July 2020) to the multifaceted crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It does so on the basis of two competing hypotheses in relation to what this response indicates about the process of integration. The first is drawn from the literature on ‘disintegration’ while the second is based on the recent argument [Jones, E., Kelemen, R. D., & Meunier, S. (2016). Failing forward? The Euro crisis and the incomplete nature of European Integration. Comparative Political Studies, 49(7), 1010–1034. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414015617966] that the EU has been ‘failing forward’ in reaction to the crises that it has been facing for more than a decade. It is argued that while the first hypothesis ought to be rejected, there is evidence indicating that the EU has responded much more in line with the ‘failing forward’ thesis. Indeed it is argued that there is (in the EU’s initial response) more evidence of the latter (forward) than the former (failing).