The EU Approach towards Disaster Management - A Critical Appraisal in the Light of the Action Put in Place to Face the COVID-19 Pandemic

The purpose of this contribution is neither to provide a comprehensive analysis of all legal tools elaborated in Europe to face disaster scenarios nor to review their global effectiveness. Instead, it intends to carry out a legal assessment of the most relevant trends of EU disaster law in light of the EU reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. With this in mind, the remainder of this contribution has been divided into four further sections. Section 2 provides a summary of the impact generated by the measures adopted at the EU level to face the pandemic on the allocation of competencies among the Union and its Members States. In the light of this, Section 3 describes the roles and responsibilities assumed by different EU institutions in dealing with the crisis, assessing their impact on the institutional framework (and balance) of the Union. Section 4 realises a general reflection on the main features and legal implications characterizing the instruments adopted by the Union in that context, with a particular emphasis on the recurrent use of soft-law acts. A summary of major outcomes is contained in Section 5.