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In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the EU and its Member States had to face very pragmatic issues: how to avoid the economic collapse of Greece, Portugal and Ireland? Decisions had to be taken quickly in any institutional or legal forum that was immediately available. For this specific reason, legal solutions entailing the conclusion of international agreements by some of the EU Member States outside the EU legal framework were taken as a new normal. Due to a close legal relationship between these new international treaties and the EU legal order, a decision was also taken to \"borrow\" already existing EU institutions and entrust them with new tasks. In this Article, we question the role of EU institutions outside the EU legal framework. We first address the evolution of the EU institutional framework in the context of the euro crisis in relation to art. 13 TEU and recital 7 of the TEU preamble and the requirement of \"unity of the institutional framework\". Section II shows that \"borrowing\" the EU institutions outside the EU legal framework does not seem to alter the nature of the single EU institutional setting. Section III questions whether the tasks entrusted to the EU institutions outside the EU legal framework do not undermine the existing institutional equilibrium within the EU legal order. Section IV addresses the EU response to the Covid-19 pandemic from an institutional perspective as raising similar concerns within the EU legal order. The last section concludes.

ObjectivesResearch on resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic has primarily focused on health system resilience. The purpose of this paper is to: (1) develop a broader understanding of societal resilience to shocks by evaluating resilience in three systems: health, economic and fundamental rights and freedoms and (2) to further operationalise resilience in terms of robustness, resistance and recovery.Settings22 European countries were selected based on the availability of data in the health, fundamental rights and freedoms, and economic systems during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.DesignThis study uses time series data to assess resilience in health, fundamental rights and freedoms, and economic systems. An overall resilience was estimated, as well as three of its components: robustness, resistance and recovery.ResultsSix countries exhibited an outlier excess mortality peak compared with the prepandemic period (2015–2019). All countries experienced economic repercussions and implemented diverse measures affecting individual rights and freedoms. Three main groups of countries were identified: (1) high health and high or moderate economic and/or fundamental rights and freedoms resilience, (2) moderate health and fundamental rights and freedoms resilience and (3) low resilience in all three systems.ConclusionsThe classification of countries into three groups provides valuable insights into the multifaceted nature of multisystemic resilience during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study highlights the importance of considering both health and economic factors when assessing resilience to shocks, as well as the necessity of safeguarding individual rights and freedoms during times of crisis. Such insights can inform policy decisions and aid in the development of targeted strategies to enhance resilience in the face of future challenges.

The current global systemic crisis reveals how globalised societies are unprepared to face a pandemic. Beyond the dramatic loss of human life, the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered widespread disturbances in health, social, economic, environmental and governance systems in many countries across the world. Resilience describes the capacities of natural and human systems to prevent, react to and recover from shocks. Societal resilience to the current COVID-19 pandemic relates to the ability of societies in maintaining their core functions while minimising the impact of the pandemic and other societal effects. Drawing on the emerging evidence about resilience in health, social, economic, environmental and governance systems, this paper delineates a multisystemic understanding of societal resilience to COVID-19. Such an understanding provides the foundation for an integrated approach to build societal resilience to current and future pandemics.