Event

Watch the webinar here:

Covid-19 has put the European Union under unprecedented stress. It came on top of a number of other crises facing the EU in recent years, including the migration crisis, the financial crisis, Brexit, the conflict in Ukraine, the legitimacy crisis. But is the future of European integration now at risk? Will the EU member states be able to deal with this crisis together? And how does crisis shape EU integration more broadly?

This seminar discusses the EU’s response to crises, focusing on its response to the Covid-19 pandemic. While the initial response to the pandemic was slow, both history and the last year’s developments suggest the EU will integrate further in dealing with this crisis, just as it has in the past.

Monnet famously said that ‘Europe will be forged in crises and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises.’ In this this seminar, Marianne Riddervold first presents findings from the newly published ‘Palgrave Handbook on EU crises’ (co-edited with Jarle Trondal and Akasemi Newsome). Scott L. Greer then delves into the EU’s Covid-19 policies, discussing how the EU has ‘failed forward’ in response to the pandemic. Although failing at first, the EU has developed a number of new tools and mechanisms, including the development of a new common health agenda. Scott also takes a comparative look at the EU, drawing on his new book ‘Coronavirus Politics: The Comparative Politics and Policy of COVID-19 (co-edited with Elizabeth J. King, Elize Massard da Fonseca and André Peralta-Santos).

Scott L. Greer, PhD is Professor of Health Management and Policy, Global Public Health and Political Science at the University of Michigan and Senior Expert Advisor on Health Governance to the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. His recent books include Federalism and Social Policy, Everything you always wanted to know about European Union health policy but were afraid to ask (revised edition coming out in October 2021), and The European Union after Brexit (2020), and the just-published Coronavirus Politics: The Comparative Politics and Policy of COVID-19.

Marianne Riddervold, PhD is a research professor (part time) in NUPI’s Research Group on Security and Defence. She is also professor in political science/international relations at the Inland School of Business and Social Sciences and a senior fellow at the UC Berkeley Institute of European Studies. Her recent books include the Palgrave Handbook on EU Crises (co-edited with Jarle Trondal and Akasemi Newsome) and the Maritime Turn in EU Foreign and Security policies. Aims, Actors and Mechanisms of Integration (2018).