Solidarity via the EU Budget and its Implications in Emergencies

Although initially seen as politically and institutionally impracticable, the link between solidarity and the EU budget has since evolved into a fundamental pillar of the EU's current integration momentum. While successive crises have broken the long-standing taboo surrounding the notions of ‘solidarity’ and ‘distribution’, particularly within the realms of EU financial and budgetary governance, academic and judicial efforts are seeking to clarify the legal meaning of solidarity and to identify its normative dynamics within the EU legal order. In parallel, the EU budget has undergone a transformation in size, flexibility and scope of action, progressively embedding the distributive mandate of solidarity, though not without limitations, into its structure and mechanisms. Against this background, this paper examines the interplay between solidarity, budgetary instruments and emergency frameworks. It first sheds light on the rationale and operational dynamics of interstate solidarity, framed as a general principle of EU law, and then explores why the EU budget serves as a key mechanism for operationalizing solidarity, and how this function evolves in response to emergencies.