Legal Legacies of Co‐ordinative Europeanisation – EU Crisis Governance Between Political Expedience and Normative Credence

This article examines the phenomenon of ‘co‐ordinative Europeanisation’, a mode of governance characterised by close collaboration between European Union (EU) institutions and national executives. It argues that, despite the significant practical advantages that this form of governance affords in times of crisis, co‐ordinative Europeanisation raises significant questions about the constitutional limits and long‐term legal implications that it creates. Drawing on doctrinal legal research, this investigation suggests that co‐ordinative Europeanisation erodes the authority of EU law to delimit public power, both during and after crisis. To substantiate this argument, the article traces the legal evolution of two key instruments of EU crisis governance, namely, the implementation of travel bans to the Schengen area and the establishment of the Recovery and Resilience Facility. In this vein, it seeks to show that co‐ordinative Europeanisation creates an institutional practice that allows key actors to jointly advance interpretations of EU law that test, and at times strain, the limits of the legally permissible.