The European Commission has played an important role in responding to crises over the last two decades. Kari Waters examines whether these extra responsibilities have undermined the Commission’s capacity to ensure national governments comply with EU law.
The last two decades have seen the EU face a seemingly endless series of crises. First it was the sovereign debt crisis, then the migration crisis, followed by Russia’s invasion of Crimea, Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Climate change is also threatening the continent, with countries facing unprecedented fires, floods and heat waves. Perhaps even more troubling is the growing rule of law crisis, driven by countries like Hungary and Poland, where democratic norms and institutions have been weakened and executive power has become more concentrated. What affect do all these crises have on the functioning of the European Union?
Jean Monnet, one of the EU’s founders, famously argued that “Europe will be forged in crises and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises”. For many years, scholars accepted and worked under this assumption. However, in recent years, some scholars are now asking whether that claim can be supported with historical evidence.
Crises like the migration crisis only highlighted the weaknesses of the EU’s migration policies and even these were unenforced in some countries. Economies in southern Europe have not yet experienced a full recovery from the debt crisis, even many years later. This suggests that far from strengthening European integration, crises have the potential to undermine it.
One area for concern is the effect of crises on EU law enforcement. The European Commission, as the executive and bureaucratic arm of the EU, has many responsibilities, including the mandate to monitor and enforce EU law within member states. But because of its highly technocratic staff, the Commission is frequently tasked with designing and advancing proposals to address the effects of crises. This means the Commission’s other functions may be vulnerable during crises. With a limited staff and budget, crises may force the Commission to prioritise some tasks over others.
Measuring crises turns out to be tricky. Often, there is debate about the exact beginning or end of a crisis. Furthermore, effects likely do not remain the same over the entire span of a crisis. For example, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many resources were needed to provide adequate masks, to develop and produce a working vaccine and to provide resources to medical systems under great strain. While COVID-19 is still an issue, it is not nearly as threatening now as it was in the beginning.
About the Author
Kari Waters is a PhD Candidate at Syracuse University.