Natural and Man-Made Disaster: Solidarity among Member States

This chapter aims at analyzing the introduction of the solidarity clause which led to a renewed debate on a basic principle that informs the entire EU construction. Article 222 TFEU can be considered a rule of closure within a broader concept of security of the Union which seeks to safeguard its identity and safety threatened not only from the outside, but more often from within. At the same time, it can also be understood as an opening clause of an emerging system of EU solidarity which includes the most varied situations of “crisis” that the Union must face today. So, the present work will confirm that this clause should be read in conjunction with other rules of EU primary and secondary law and, as a result, that attempts of its broad interpretation can come from practice or in connection with other provisions to which necessarily, although implicitly, it refers. Although the solidarity clause has been rightly considered 'an integral part of a permanent EU crisis response, crisis management and crisis coordination system', a lot of consistency and efficiency are necessary to find a good balance in the combination of solidarity and security.