The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront of European society the issue of response and management plan in time of crisis. Thus appears the idea of evaluating and developing the system (or systems) of public intervention at the level of European public administration, whether we are talking about national institutions or those of the European Union. In the context in which a large part of the EU population is distrustful of the European Commission’s ability to manage the health crisis optimally, and general dissatisfaction with the actions of national governments is rising, this article explores the model of crisis management, both at European and national level. It focuses on the effects of management strategy to combat COVID-19 pandemic observed during the last year and is trying to explore some key elements from the point of view of the transformative paradigm (the critical theory). While we found that European policy-makers displayed a tendency to maintain the status quo of a common strategy in the public sector, we also found that the effectiveness of their response strategies failed in the case of vulnerable groups.