The EU institutions demonstrated considerable resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, a report published today by the European Court of Auditors concludes. The European Parliament, the Council, the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the EU all responded rapidly and flexibly, and benefited from previous investments they had made in digitalisation. EU institutions nevertheless still have challenges ahead to make the best of the innovation and flexibility brought about by the crisis in the post-COVID world.

At the end of January 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was officially recorded in Europe. In a matter of weeks, the disease had spread across the EU. With people urged to stay home and telework, companies and institutions had to find ways to ensure business continuity. The EU institutions had already been confronted with health and safety crises in the recent past: the Ebola outbreak (2014) for the EU delegations, and the Brussels (2016) and Strasbourg (2018) terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, the scale and duration of the COVID-19 crisis was unprecedented. To assess the resilience of the EU institutions in the face of this crisis, the EU auditors looked at the institutions’ level of preparedness and assessed how they coped with the COVID-19 pandemic and what lessons they had drawn from it.

“The EU institutions have not been immune to the COVID-19 crisis. The crisis has had profound and far-reaching effects on the way the institutions function, and how their staff members work”, said Marek Opioła, the ECA member responsible for the audit. “Resilient organisations are ones that have the capacity to learn from a crisis and emerge stronger. We think that EU bodies have proved their resilience over the past two years of crisis.” 

The Special report of The European Court of Auditors in its entirety