Introduction: EU constraints and opportunities in the COVID-19 pandemic—the politics of NGEU

This Special Issue focuses on how EU politics, policies and institutions, all nested in the past, have a bearing on welfare states in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In this introductory article, we first provide a brief overview of the growing scholarship on the impact of the pandemic on both national welfare systems and EU policies. We then contextualise the initial pandemic policy responses by highlighting the economic challenges to European welfare states leftover from the Great Recession and Eurozone crisis before outlining the timeline of the EU reaction to the COVID-19 crisis, culminating in the Next Generation EU deal. Finally, we summarize the distinctive empirical and theoretical perspectives of each contribution to this Special Issue. Taken together, the articles in this issue offer a much-needed analysis of the interplay between EU level and member state politics that furthers our understanding of the social and economic policies implemented in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.