Explaining the Emergence of Different European Union Crisis and Emergency Management Structures

Abstract

Two European Union (EU) tools were adopted to enhance cooperation among Member States in the case of crises and emergencies (natural, industrial or man‐made) occurring both inside and outside the EU borders: first, the EU has developed a new tool in the field of civil protection that has been managed by the Directorate General Environment of the European Commission under the label of the Community Civil Protection Mechanism since 2001. Second, the Emergency and Crisis Coordination Arrangements (CCA), under the responsibility of the European Council, have been developed since 2005. Using a sociological neo‐institutionalist approach based on the concept of ‘divergent isomorphism’, the paper explains who and what the sources of EU integration process were leading to the coexistence of these two structures. Two case studies are presented using process tracing to demonstrate that two different pre‐existing organizational models were copied to create the EU structures of crisis and emergency management: that of the Community Marine pollution framework for the Community Civil Protection Mechanism and that of NATO for the CCA.