Communicable and Other Infectious Diseases

Author(s):  
Markus Frischhut

This chapter discusses the most important features of EU law on infectious diseases. Communicable diseases not only cross borders, they also often require measures that cross different areas of policy because of different vectors for disease transmission. The relevant EU law cannot be attributed to one sectoral policy only, and thus various EU agencies participate in protecting public health. The key agency is the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Other important agencies include the European Environment Agency; European Food Safety Authority; and the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency. However, while integration at the EU level has facilitated protection of the public's health, it also has created potential conflicts among the different objectives of the European Union. The internal market promotes the free movement of products, but public health measures can require restrictions of trade. Other conflicts can arise if protective public health measures conflict with individual human rights. The chapter then considers risk assessment and the different tools of risk management used in dealing with the challenges of infectious diseases. It also turns to the external and ethical perspective and the role the European Union takes in global health.

2020 ◽  
pp. 540-556
Author(s):  
Marios Costa ◽  
Steve Peers

This chapter examines the European Union (EU) law concerning the free movement of persons and the limitations of this right on grounds of public health, public security, or public policy, including the ‘rule of reason’ and expulsion, refusal of entry or an entry ban due to criminal offences or other personal conduct. It analyses the relationship between the Citizens’ Rights Directive (CRD) (Directive 2004/38/EC) and its relationship with Treaty provisions. It considers the substantive scope of the derogation provisions and the procedural guarantees in the CRD applicable to EU citizens and their family members facing expulsion, refusal of entry or entry bans.


2001 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 94-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Glismann ◽  
T Rønne ◽  
A E Tozzi

The EUVAC-NET network is in charge of the epidemiological surveillance and control of vaccine preventable diseases. It is coordinated by the SSI in Denmark, in collaboration with the ISS in Italy. The two main diseases targeted by the network are measles and pertussis. A collaboration is planned with the PHLS for the monitoring of Haemophilus influenzae b. EUVAC-NET includes the Member States of the European Union, and Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.


2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (49) ◽  
Author(s):  
H Needham ◽  
Collective Influenza team (ECDC)

Since the emergence of A/H5N1 in the winter of 2005-2006 at the border of the European Union (EU), including human cases in Turkey, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has developed assessments on the public health risks from A/H5N1, and guidance on how to protect those that may be exposed to the virus.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elspeth Guild

When Covid-19 was acknowledged to have arrived in Europe in February-March 2020, politicians and public health authorities scrabbled to find appropriate and effective responses to the challenges. The EU obligation contained in Article 9 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) requiring the EU (including the Member States to achieve a common protection on human health, however, seems to have been missing from the responses.) Instead, borders and their control became a site of substantial political debate across Europe as a possible venue for effective measures to limit the spread of the pandemic. While the most invasive Covid-19 measures have been within EU states, lockdown, closure of businesses etc., the cross-border aspects (limitations on cross border movement) have been important. In the European Union this had important consequences for EU law on border controls, in particular free movement of persons and the absence of controls among Schengen states. It also implicated border controls with third countries, including European Free Trade Area (EFTA and Switzerland) all states neighboring the EU, the UK (having left the EU on 1 January 2020) the Western Balkans and Turkey. While EU law distinguishes between Schengen borders where no control takes place on persons, non-Schengen EU borders, where controls take place but are limited to identity checks and border controls with third countries and external borders with third countries (non-EFTA or Swiss) the responses of many Member States and the EU institutions abandoned many aspects of these distinctions. Indeed, the difference between border controls between states (inside Schengen, the EU, EFTA, or outside) and internal restrictions on movement became increasingly blurred. Two approaches—public health and public policy—were applied simultaneously and not always in ways which were mutually coherent, or in any way consistent with the Article 9 TFEU commitment. While the public health approach to movement of persons is based on ensuring identification of those in need of treatment or possibly carrying the disease, providing treatment as quickly as possible or quarantine, the public policy approach is based on refusing entry to persons who are a risk irrespective of what that may mean in terms of propagating the pandemic in neighboring states or states of origin. I will examine here the ways in which the two approaches were applied in the EU from the perspective of EU law on border controls.


Author(s):  
Lorna Woods ◽  
Philippa Watson ◽  
Marios Costa

This chapter examines the European Union (EU) law concerning the free movement of persons and the limitations of this right on grounds of public health, public security, or public policy. It analyses the relationship between the Citizens’ Rights Directive (CRD) (Directive 2004/38/EC) and its relationship with Treaty provisions. It considers the substantive scope of the derogation provisions and the procedural guarantees in the CRD.


2021 ◽  
pp. 361-374
Author(s):  
Mirjana Radović

The European Union is generally open to inward foreign direct investments (FDI). However, over recent years there is a rising trend in screening of inward FDI from third countries in the Member States. As a result, the Regulation (EU) 2019/452 on screening of foreign direct investments was enacted. In this paper the author, firstly, explains the reasons for a change in treatment of inward FDI from third countries within the Member States and the EU itself. The second part of the paper contains an analysis of the legal framework for FDI in the EU, in order to determine the possibility of their restrictions through national legislations. Special attention is given to the FDI-Screening Regulation and its minimum standards for national screening mechanisms. Finally, the author examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affects the treatment of FDI in the EU and concludes that the current crisis has contributed to further expanding the scope and importance of their screening and control.


2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (5) ◽  
pp. 633-658
Author(s):  
Tamara K Hervey

Brownsword et al.’s concept of stewardship relies on the notions of intervention ladders' and of 'productive disconnection' and 'intelligent purposive reconnection' between the written texts of the law and developments in science, society and the interface between the two. This article argues that 'superstewardship' (a modified version of stewardship applicable at the supranational level) provides an appropriate standpoint for analysis and assessment of the European Union’s (EU) law and policy-making institutions in the area of public health. The article gives a preliminary illustration of how superstewardship might be used in this way. The overall argument is that intervention ladders, duly modified, provide a device for analysis or assessment of law and policy-making, and that productive disconnection and intelligent purposive reconnection, duly modified, provide a device for analysis or assessment of adjudication by the EU’s Court of Justice.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2-2019) ◽  
pp. 419-433
Author(s):  
Stefanie Vedder

National high courts in the European Union (EU) are constantly challenged: the European Court of Justice (ECJ) claims the authority to declare national standing interpretations invalid should it find them incompatible with its views on EU law. This principle noticeably impairs the formerly undisputed sovereignty of national high courts. In addition, preliminary references empower lower courts to question interpretations established by their national ‘superiors’. Assuming that courts want to protect their own interests, the article presumes that national high courts develop strategies to elude the breach of their standing interpretations. Building on principal-agent theory, the article proposes that national high courts can use the level of (im-) precision in the wording of the ECJ’s judgements to continue applying their own interpretations. The article develops theoretical strategies for national high courts in their struggle for authority.


Author(s):  
Pavlos Eleftheriadis

This book offers a legal and political theory of the European Union. Many political and legal philosophers compare the EU to a federal union. They believe that its basic laws should be subject to the standards of constitutional law. They thus find it lacking or incomplete. This book offers a rival theory. If one looks more closely at the treaties and the precedents of the European courts, one sees that the substance of EU law is international, not constitutional. Just like international law, it applies primarily to the relations between states. It binds domestic institutions directly only when the local constitutions allow it. The member states have democratically chosen to adapt their constitutional arrangements in order to share legislative and executive powers with their partners. The legal architecture of the European Union is thus best understood under a theory of dualism and not pluralism. According to this internationalist view, EU law is part of the law of nations and its distinction from domestic law is a matter of substance, not form. This arrangement is supported by a cosmopolitan theory of international justice, which we may call progressive internationalism. The EU is a union of democratic peoples, that freely organize their interdependence on the basis of principles of equality and reciprocity. Its central principles are not the principles of a constitution, but cosmopolitan principles of accountability, liberty, and fairness,


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