Administrative Capacity and Rule of Law in the European Union: Policy Instruments and Reforms (2020-2025)
Abstract
The European Union’s response to the COVID‑19 crisis has reconfigured its governance model in the face of the green and digital transitions and mounting Rule of Law challenges. This article examines how EU conditionality and technical assistance operate as catalysts of bureaucratic transformations in the member states. We conceptualise administrative capacity within the European Administrative Space, analyse the Union’s technical and financial support instruments and their domestic implementation, and use the pillars of the Annual Rule of Law Report to identify certain obstacles to consolidating administrative capacities. We argue that the European Commission has used pandemic management to strengthen bureaucratic capacities and rebalance EU multilevel governance, albeit within clearly delineated institutional constraints. At the same time, we show that enduring divergences in administrative modernisation continue to condition the implementation of investments and other EU policy instruments. The article theorises the link between administrative capacity and the Rule of Law, systematises certain gaps in national bureaucratic capacity and compares administrative reform trajectories within the European framework, concluding with a call to expand supranational support for strengthening public bureaucracies as a measure of democratic resilience.
Received: 4 May 2026
Accepted: 3 June 2026
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Last update: 26/10/2026
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