Published through UNU-CPR’s Global Governance Innovation Platform (GGI) initiative, a new policy brief by Stella Ladi, Dimitra Panagiotatou and Angelos Angelou examines lessons from the European Union’s response to COVID-19, focusing on its vaccine strategy and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). The authors explore how informal, flexible and coordinated forms of governance can complement formal decision-making when institutions face rapidly evolving crises.
The brief argues that crises expose persistent tensions between the need for rapid action and established procedures; collective responses and national preferences; and flexibility and institutional accountability. It shows how early consultation, informal negotiation, expert networks and continuous coordination can help bridge these tensions and enable collective action.
The EU’s COVID-19 vaccine strategy demonstrates how informal coordination supported joint procurement and distribution even in an area where the EU had limited formal competence. The RRF, meanwhile, illustrates how formal accountability mechanisms can be combined with iterative coordination between institutions and national governments, strengthening national ownership while allowing policies to adapt during implementation.
The authors identify four priorities for strengthening crisis governance:
- Embed early-stage informal coordination to align positions and build consensus before formal decisions are made.
- Develop flexible informal mechanisms that allow experimentation and rapid adjustment.
- Institutionalize socialization and knowledge-sharing to build trust and shared understanding before crises occur.
- Strengthen lesson-sharing across crises so institutions retain and apply knowledge from previous emergencies.
The broader lesson extends beyond Europe: effective crisis governance depends not only on formal mandates and legal authority, but also on trusted channels for coordination, information-sharing and adaptation. At the same time, greater reliance on informal governance must be balanced with safeguards for transparency and accountability.
