Intergovernmental integration within supranational policymaking: the European Council's role in the EU's financial response to the COVID-19 pandemic

This article examines the European Union (EU)'s financial response to the COVID-19 pandemic. To do so, it traces the role of the European Council in the policymaking process for the establishment of two innovative financial instruments – the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and the general regime of conditionality (GRC) for the protection of the Union's budget, both adopted through the ordinary legislative procedure (OLP) of the supranational system. Combining insights from the ‘new intergovernmentalism’ and the ‘emergency politics’ literatures, the article argues that, in times of emergency, consensus becomes the guiding norm of European integration through the leading role of the European Council even in the context of majority-based supranational policymaking. The article shows that in both cases the European Council exercised quasi-legislative decision-making powers, thereby limiting the role of other EU institutions. This contributes to turning the post-Maastricht paradox of ‘integration without supranational policymaking’ into the new paradox of ‘intergovernmental integration within supranational policymaking’.