What did the COVID-19 crisis teach us about European solidarity? : incomplete integration, conflicts of sovereignty and the principle of solidarity in EU law

Abstract

The main purpose of this chapter is to analyse and assess how the EU has reacted to the pandemic, considering that no Treaty reform has been undertaken and that a pivotal role has been played by the principle of solidarity. Solidarity can assume a special role in the governance of crises. Secondly, it is precisely through the prism of solidarity that I will look at the COVID-19 crisis as a governance crisis and at its meaning for European integration. Th is chapter will focus on the role played by the principle of solidarity, which is one of the vectors of flexibility of the European legal system, and on how it is used to mitigate the negative effects that competing sovereignties display on the functioning of the EU. Solidarity is invoked as the principle to fix integration fractures, precisely like in the Japanese kintsugi technique, where a gold fluid is used to put together the pieces of broken ceramics; solidarity is supposed to reconcile the EU and its Member States when conflicts emerge in a traumatic manner and, consequently, to boost the legitimacy of the EU, in the sense of capacity to deliver policy reforms and public goods when needed. Solidarity is also meant to supplement the capacity of the EU to deliver to citizens’ expectations irrespective of the limited or sectoral (depending on the context considered) competences it has been vested with – an expression of the incompleteness of the integration process, which finds expression in its similarly incomplete constitution. Having introduced the context of the research and its purpose and aim, the next section will expound on the conceptual framework underpinning it, namely discussing the incomplete integration and the conflicts of sovereignty which have emerged in a predominant manner in the last decade of integration and that are the consequences of the constitutional design of the EU. The chapter will then elaborate on the principle of solidarity as a core principle of European integration, and its function in managing crises, expounding on the challenges underpinning its achievement. In another section, the attention will turn on the solutions designed to fix the economic component of the COVID-19 crisis, focusing on the Next Generation EU to understand some lessons on how solidarity is used to ensure the achievement of a crucial target for the EU, namely recovery of the economies of the Member States, before concluding with some reflections learned on the principle of solidarity as a flexibility vector of the overall open and incomplete system of integration which is the EU.