Towards a More Resilient European Union after the COVID-19 Crisis

The pandemic crisis constitutes an unprecedented challenge for the European Union and for the Euro Area. Indeed, European institutional architecture can be viewed as being half-way between an association of sovereign states (like the United Nations, for example) and a politically integrated federation (like the United States for example). In this original construction, competences on several matters (such as economic, political, social and health issues, etc.) are shared at the European level, but also at the national and local levels in more complex ways than in fully integrated federations. To improve the resilience of the European Union to violent external shocks, the main objective of this paper is to determine to what extent these competences have to be transferred to the federal level. In this respect, we will consider whether a federal leap is necessary in several areas namely (i) monetary and fiscal policy (rules), (ii) labor markets policy and social models, migratory flows and skill shortages, and cooperation policy and (iii) renewed industrial policy and exchange rates. Despite a highly uncertain context, we outline some perspectives for the future of the European Union