While the harmonisation of insolvency law in the European Union (EU) has been a top priority on the European institutions' agenda in the last decade, it is well known that this endeavour has been slow and has often met resistance from the Member States. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that top-down harmonisation of insolvency (i.e., introduced at EU level) has been temporarily halted. The urgency to control or mitigate the economically and financially destructive effects of the pandemic has, nevertheless, forced European governments to adopt domestic strategies and laws in the area of insolvency. Interestingly, however, such measures show that insolvency and restructuring law responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, albeit largely uncoordinated, reflect a phenomenon of bottom-up harmonisation (i.e., introduced by Member States) indicating a convergence towards common approaches. This paper interrogates the insolvency law responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in six European countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom). It uncovers the inadequacy of the EU's harmonisation language, and the limits of harmonisation strategies in insolvency and restructuring law. Finally, it promotes the formulation of a wider-encompassing definition of “legal harmonisation”.

中文翻译：

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协调欧盟的破产法：在 COVID-19 大流行之后对旧观念的新思考

虽然在过去十年中，欧盟（EU）破产法的统一一直是欧洲机构议程上的重中之重，但众所周知，这一努力进展缓慢，并且经常遇到成员国的阻力。COVID-19 大流行表明，自上而下的破产协调（即在欧盟层面引入）已暂时停止。然而，控制或减轻疫情对经济和金融的破坏性影响的紧迫性迫使欧洲各国政府在破产领域采取国内战略和法律。然而，有趣的是，这些措施表明，破产和重组法对 COVID-19 大流行的反应，尽管在很大程度上不协调，但反映了一种自下而上的协调现象（即，由会员国提出）表明趋同于共同方法。本文探讨了六个欧洲国家（丹麦、法国、德国、意大利、荷兰、英国）的破产法对 COVID-19 大流行的反应。它揭示了欧盟统一语言的不足之处，以及统一战略在破产和重组法中的局限性。最后，它促进制定更广泛的“法律协调”定义。