Between conventional emergency management and exceptionalism: the European Union’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper examines the European Union’s (EU) response to the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of crisis management, delegation theory, and emergency politics. It focuses on the European Council, the European Commission, and the Council of the EU, analyzing their interplay and the nature of exceptional emergency measures (EEMs) between 2020 and 2023. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study integrates computational text analysis techniques: large language models (LLMs), Structural Topic Models (STMs), and dictionary-based analysis, alongside a case study of the vaccine export transparency and authorization mechanism. Findings show that the Commission played a central operational role in crisis management, while acting within a framework of delegated authority. Although the Council was the main supporter of the EEMs, the Commission often acted as a first mover and the operational actor of these measures. These results contribute to debates on EU crisis governance, highlighting the interaction between delegation and exceptionalism.