JCMS

In April 2022, the European Commission (EC) declared that it plans to attract more labour migrants to the European Union (EU). This is a response to the challenges posed by the demographic ageing of the EU, as people are living longer and having fewer children.

The EU is currently mobilising its market power through a range of new policy tools. Examples include the Climate Border Adjustment Mechanisms (CBAM), the International Procurement Instrument and the Anti-Coercion Instrument. The general aim, as explained in the EU’s trade policy review and the recent industrial strategy, is to make the EU stronger, more assertive and more geopolitically relevant.

In March 2020 EU governments unilaterally began closing state borders in an ad hoc reaction to the rapid spreading of SARS-CoV-2. Within a few days, one after the other announced that border crossings would be suspended until further notice. These executive decisions gave us pause: democratic governments are required to communicate and justify their decisions to maintain legitimacy.

In our recent JCMS article, we try to understand the EU’s pivot away from multilateralism and market-making towards OSA. Our starting point is the changing nature of Europe’s global context, and how this created an opening to challenge Europe’s embedded neoliberal compromise.

How can we explain the very uneven economic outcomes in EU member countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially considering that the shock was largely symmetric?