From the Pandemic to the War: The EU Fiscal Response to Russia's Aggression of Ukraine, the Legacy of NGEU and the Challenge to "Promote the General Welfare"

The article maps the core fiscal and economic measures adopted by the European Union (EU) to respond to the Russian war of aggression and to fund Ukraine, discussing the legacy effect of the policy response to the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular the article examines the European Peace Facility, the Macro-Financial Assistance Instrument for Ukraine 2023 and the Ukraine Facility 2024-7. The article underlines how the measures adopted by the EU reproduced several of the mechanisms put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic – including the use of common debt experimented with Next Generation EU. At the same time, the article emphasizes the structural
challenges in the EU constitution that limit the consolidation of a fiscal capacity in the EU.