Fiscal evolution and the syndemic

Since its inception the COVID-19 crisis revealed that EU countries ’ immediate responses did not follow a clear path. Th ere is however growing evidence that tax measures naturally converged and this chapter hypothesises that this was a downstream eff ect of a common political framework of ‘ COVID-19 exceptionalism ’ based on biopolitics, a convergence that defi es the initial expectations of fragmented reactions to the emergency but which also poses critical challenges. Section I sets the stage of the evolutionary analysis and indicates that the COVID-19 crisis led to a convergence of tax policies. Sections II and III briefl y describe the concept of ‘ biopolitics ’ and ‘ state of exception ’ as they emerged in seminal contributions mainly by Foucault and Agamben and show how these concepts can be understood in a novel fashion to explain convergence of tax policies in the context of the COVID-19 emergency. Section IV concludes showing that COVID-19 biopower, biopolitics and exceptionalism also constituted the institutional cause for the sudden adoption of the Next Generation EU, a measure that directly implies investments but which has the essential mark of being a fi scal turning point.