Working Paper: COVID-19 - the Beginning of a New Era?

Georgia Petropoulou focusses her research as a Charlemagne Prize Fellow 2019/2020 on the challenges and opportunities of connectivity in the countries of the Western Balkan, with special regard to further EU enlargement. 

This is her second milestone report that focusses on the European response on the COVID-19 pandemic, annotates its impact on connectivity and EU integration and proposes future scenarios on a post-COVID-19 society. Considering the overarching topic of the COVID-19 pandemic in the first half of the year 2020, accession negotiations have been affected and postponed on the one hand, while methods of connectivity had to be adjusted to an unprecedented situation on the other hand. Georgia Petropoulou draws upon the European crisis management, which has been defined by two narratives between the north and the south, presenting critical as well as positive aspects of the response for future scenarios.