EU Institutional Resilience and Population Protection during COVID-19: Explaining the Social Impact of the Regulation (EU) 2021/241

The aim of the study is to explore the general provisions and policy areas of the Regulation (EU) 2021/241 for the establishment and implementation of the “Recovery and Resilience Facility” (RRF) and to explain why the horizontal principles and the recovery instruments make such a difference for the European Union (EU) recovery plans. The research of the nexus between the policy coordination, the resilience facilities and the population protection outcomes is mapped by designing on a legal and social account of: (1) the shared programmes and resources; (2) the harmonious implementation of the EU policies (EUp) in the context of the COVID-19 crisis; (3) the stipulation of the principle of additionality concerning the EU funding areas; (4) the goals of the intervention fields in accordance with the Annex VI of the RRF: the social policies, the social integration of the vulnerable groups of the population, the social inclusion, the employment policies, the economic policies, the digital transition, the territorial cohesion, the green transition by pointing: biodiversity and climate measures. The paper concludes with a discussion of the “institutional resilience” and the “resilience dialogue” by outlining the need for a coordinated response of the Member States (MS) to reinforce the link between EU policy areas and the economic governance.