The Covid-19 Pandemic and the European Union: State, Democracy, Deception. And hope?

In the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, Europe became the epicenter after Asia, and before it reached America. In this scenario, national borders reappeared and citizens felt safe being within their "closed" state, even at the expense of their individual rights. The European Union (EU), with a complement and support function on health issues, had to "navigate" between these multi-level structures. Moreover, even if European citizens have criticized EU's slowness and inefficiency, they know that it remains a necessary and essential support scheme. In this paper, we aim at describing the disruptive effects of the pandemic on the process of European integration, identifying three areas: the tensions between the national level and the European level, the impact on the democratic institutions of the Member States, and citizens' perceptions and attitudes about the EU's management of the pandemic. Possibly the EU, for the first time in a long time, could give the answer that its citizens expect and come out stronger from this crisis.