Ferrera et al. (2024) argue that in the compound EU polity, the escalation potential of policy politicization into polity politicization is high. However, this very constellation induces key actors to focus their attention on polity maintenance and the de-escalation of policy politicization. Based on data documenting the public debate on EU policymaking and secondary literature, this study analyzes the dynamics of policy politicization in the EU during the COVID-19 crisis. Even if policymaking during this crisis was comparatively consensual (Kriesi, 2024), it was characterized by policy-specific escalation processes that might have put the polity in danger. However, the combination of a variety of polity maintenance mechanisms available in the EU polity contributed to the de-escalation of policy-specific conflicts and, by implication, to the maintenance of the EU polity in the COVID-19 crisis.