Resilient Europe.the Impact of the Crisis on EU Policy-Making

Crises, because they are periods of major stress and create plentiful opportunities of conflict, can be expected to have an impact over policy-making processes. As is known, in recent years, the EU has been going through the most severe crisis in its history. What impact has this had over policy-making ?  So far, scholarly analyses have tended to focus on major changes introduced in response the Eurozone crisis. But what about day-to-day politics? Is there evidence of a change due to the complex environment in which decisions were made ? Analyzing a unique data set covering all legislative decisions taken by the EU over a 20 years period, the paper identifies clears signs of stress, but suggests that the most remarkable feature of the EU system has been its ability to overcome political tensions, despite the development of pessimism amongst observes or the European scene. This clear pattern of resilience, which can be seen as a form of solidity, however leaves open the question whether this will be sufficient to enable the EU to respond to new challenges.