At this Friday Update, EPC Director of Studies Janis A. Emmanouilidis and EPC Chief Executive Fabian Zuleeg shared their analysis of the latest developments at EU level, including on COVID-19 and Europe's response to the ongoing crisis. They focused on the need for some form of European fiscal solidarity and the impact of the pandemic on the MFF negotiations, as well as on suggestions to finetune the Commission's original proposal.

EPC Policy Analyst Marta Pilati explained the political and practical implications of COVID-19 on the EU's budget plans. She mostly drew from her latest Commentary on the EU's multiannual budget in which she sets out the case for an emergency plan for 2021 and argues in favour of a postponement to the negotiations and an extension of the current MFF by one year as a second-best alternative.

In the second half of the briefing, Zuleeg and Emmanouilidis talked about the Hungarian government's announcement earlier in the week of a series of emergency measures that severely undermine the rule of law in the country, and how the EU should respond.  

Emmanouilidis commented that what had happened in Hungary shouldn't have come as a surprise: "We've seen that the Hungarian government has always used times of crises to increase its executive power". Zuleeg warned to be careful to resist the temptation to punish the country as a whole under the current circumstances since it would mostly be the Hungarian people who would suffer the most.

When asked whether this crisis could undermine the very legitimacy of the European Union, Zuleeg responded that, more than anything, this crisis has shown how strongly connected we all are. The legitimacy of the EU can be summed in one word he said: "interdependence. What happens in one part of Europe has an impact on everyone else. We can either ignore that fact or try to come up with ways to make it work as best as we possibly can."