scholarly journals The State of the Health (Dis)-Union in the EU: the legacy of austerity under the trial of Covid-19

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matilde Ceron ◽  
Carlo Maria Palermo
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Policy Evaluation ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
The Core ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Eu Governance ◽  
Current Governance ◽  
The Eu

Covid-19 highlights the inadequacy of EU governance cross-border challenges, especially transnational health challenges, supporting the call for a Health Union. Health policy remains a near-exclusive national competence whose budget was heavily impacted by EU-driven austerity, especially in Southern Europe. The work provides a comprehensive empirical assessment of the pandemic case evidencing the limits of the current governance framework and tabled reform proposals. The analysis contributes an extended understanding of the implications of the lack of an effective EU public health competence. We assess comparatively (austerity-induced) geographic heterogeneities in health-care preparedness, outbreak, crisis management and outcomes, delineating the extent to which inequalities remain in the absence of a Health Union. Findings evidence an empirically grounded case for sovereignty pooling in the core transnational domain of public health while providing a preliminary policy evaluation of the proposal for a Health Union.

EU Health Law & Policy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anniek de Ruijter
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Division Of Powers ◽  
Legal Principle ◽  
Legal Competence ◽  
The Eu

This book describes the expansion of EU power in health care and public health and analyses the implications of this expansion on EU health values and rights. The main conclusion of the book is that the EU is de facto balancing fundamental rights and values relating to health, implicitly taking on obligations for safeguarding fundamental rights in the field of health and affecting individuals’ rights sometimes without an explicit legal competence to do so. This brings to light instances where EU health policy has implications for fundamental rights and values without the possibility to challenge the exercise of power of the EU in human health. This begs the question of whether subsidiarity is still the most relevant legal principle for the division of powers and tasks among the Member States, particularly when EU policy and law involves the politically sensitive areas of health care and public health. This question draws out the parameter for continuing the debate on the role of the European Union in promoting its own values and the wellbeing of its peoples, in light of its ever-growing role in human health issues.

scholarly journals A New Vision for Europe’s Bioeconomy in a Post-COVID World

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Finston ◽  
Nigel Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Health Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Inclusive Leadership ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
Public Health Threat ◽  
New Vision ◽  
The Eu

In response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the European Commission (EC) provided inclusive leadership, working as a team including EU member (national) officials, biopharmaceutical industry, NGOs, academic researchers and frontline health care personnel – acting with unprecedented collaboration and cohesion.  The emergence in early 2020 of the greatest public health threat in a century required new approaches and new collaborations. While the United States failed to provide leadership, the EU did not disappoint.

The EU Response to Criminal Misuse of Cryptocurrencies: The Young, already Outdated 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-251
Author(s):  
Valentina Covolo
Keyword(s):  
Money Laundering ◽  
Business Models ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
The Core ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
The Us ◽  
New Business ◽  
New Business Models ◽  
The Eu

Abstract Combatting criminal misuse of cryptocurrencies was at the core of the fatf agenda under the US Presidency, culminating in June 2019 with the thorough extension of international standards against money laundering over virtual assets’ markets. This echoed the first legislative measure regulating virtual currencies adopted by the EU a year before. Directive 2018/843, better known as the 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive, fails however to address key technological breakthroughs and new business models, which continuously make the ever-growing and fast-paced crypto economy evolve. Against this background, the present contribution investigates shortfalls and challenges that lay ahead in the light of the new fatf Recommendations. It ultimately argues that the preventive anti-money laundering measures cannot dispense with the establishment of a cross-border integrated supervisory and enforcement system.

scholarly journals Public health leadership in the times of COVID-19: a comparative case study of three countries

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Glenn ◽  
Claire Chaumont ◽  
Pablo Villalobos Dintrans
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Public Leadership ◽  
The Core ◽  
Public Leaders ◽  
The Way

PurposeThe purpose is to understand the role of public leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and advocate for a more active role of public health professionals in helping manage the crisis.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use the framework developed by Boin et al. (2005) on crisis leadership. The authors focus on three of the core tasks – sense-making, decision-making and meaning-making – that are relevant to explain the role of public leaders during the ongoing crisis. The authors draw from the experience of three countries – Chile, France and the United States – to illustrate how these tasks were exercised with concrete examples.FindingsSeveral examples of the way in which public leaders reacted to the crisis are found in the selected countries. Countries show different responses to the way they assessed and reacted to the COVID-19 as a crisis, the decisions taken to prevent infections and mitigate consequences, and the way they communicate information to the population.Practical implicationsA better understanding public leadership as a key for better crisis management, particularly for designing policy responses to public health crises. Public health leaders need to assume a more active role in the crisis management process, which also implies the emergence of a new class of public health leaders and a more prominent role for public health in the public eye.Originality/valueThe use of examples from three different countries, as well as the focus on the core leadership tasks during an ongoing crisis help not only assessing the crisis management but also extracting lessons for the coming months, as well as future public health emergencies. The three authors have a first-hand experience on the evolution of the crisis in their countries and the environment, since they are currently living and working in public health in Chile, France and the United States.

scholarly journals Workshop: Everything you always wanted to know about EU health policy but were afraid to ask

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
European Union ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Health System ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Determinants Of Health ◽  
Health In All Policies ◽  
Border Regions ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
The Eu

Abstract Objective The EU is often criticized for being ‘market-driven’ and practicing a form of ‘cold integration’. Any attempt, however, to strengthen solidarity and social integration in the EU is met by stakeholders in the member states with reservation and often outright refusal, arguing that health systems are national competence subject to the subsidiary principle. This conundrum of asking for more but allowing for less has blocked a scientifically informed public debate about the EU and health policy. The overall objective of this workshop is to discuss how health research can contribute to resolve this conundrum making the EU more conducive to the needs of health systems, public health (PH) and Health in All Policies (HiAP). To this end we will review the following 4 specific topics What are is EU-health policy and what other policies are affecting health and health systems?What tells us the projected Brexit-impact on the UK health system and PH about the value of EU health policy?Are EU-trade policies shaping healthier commercial determinants of health?What is the added value of cross-border care at and beyond border regions? This workshop is based on the update of the seminal volume “Everything you always wanted to know about European Union health policies but were afraid to ask” (2019, 2nd edition). Key note Scott Greer: In health and health systems the European Union is ubiquitous. Health systems in Europe are hard to figure without the cross border mobility of health professions. Patients going cross-borders. We have a European Medicines Agency that is regulating key aspects of the pharmaceutical market. Health systems have become part of the economic governance of the EU. In PH we have the ECDC, a PH programme and policies on health related consumer protection and may mechanism that should protect European citizens from scourges that know no borders. With health in all policies, the EU legislates literally on all known agents and, when in doubt, is using the pre-cautionary principle to protect citizens from health hazards. All this is supported by a large EU research programme. Panellist 1 N Fahy, the projected impact of Brexit on health system functions of the United Kingdom demonstrates how deep the integration goes and how beneficial it is for both health systems and public health. Panellist 2 H Jarman: The discussion around the Transatlantic Trade an Investment Partnership (TTIP) have risen worries about privatization of health services and lowering of food standards. But TTIP is only the tip of the Iceberg given that the EU has several types of trade agreements with many countries and groups of countries, shaping the commercial determinants of health. Panellist 3 W Palm: Cross-border collaboration is already taking place in many border regions. The European reference networks demonstrate the value of the cross-border collaboration beyond border regions, as does collaboration for joint purchasing and health workforce development. Key messages Health is important at the EU level and the EU level is important for health. Not shaping health and health systems at EU level will limit the perspectives of EU integration, health system development public health and HiAP. Panelists Scott Greer Holly Jarman Contact: [email protected] Nick Fahy Contact: [email protected] Willy Palm Contact: [email protected] Contact: [email protected]

scholarly journals Covid-19 Using Border Controls to Fight a Pandemic? Reflections From the European Union

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elspeth Guild
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
European Union ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Public ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Article 9 ◽  
Border Controls ◽  
The Eu

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.

scholarly journals An Assessment of Coherence Between Early Warning and Response Systems and Serious Cross-Border Health Threats in the European Union and Turkey

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 883-892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Perihan Elif Ekmekci
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
European Union ◽  
Early Warning ◽  
World Health ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Response Planning ◽  
Health Threats ◽  
Response Systems ◽  
The Eu

AbstractDisease outbreaks have attracted the attention of the public health community to early warning and response systems (EWRS) for communicable diseases and other cross-border threats to health. The European Union (EU) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have published regulations in this area. Decision 1082/2013/EU brought a new approach the management of public health threats in EU member states. Decision 1082/2013/EU brought several innovations, which included establishing a Health Security Committee; preparedness and response planning; joint procurement of medical countermeasures; ad hoc monitoring for biological, chemical, and environmental threats; EWRS; and recognition of an emergency situation and interoperability between various sectors. Turkey, as an acceding country to the EU and a member of the WHO, has been improving its national public health system to meet EU legislations and WHO standards. This article first explains EWRS as defined in Decision 1082/2013/EU and Turkey’s obligations to align its public health laws to the EU acquis. EWRS in Turkey are addressed, particularly their coherence with EU policies regarding preparedness and response, alert notification, and interoperability between health and other sectors. Finally, the challenges and limitations of the current Turkish system are discussed and further improvements are suggested. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2016;10:883–892)

scholarly journals Harmful Commercial Marketing and Children’s Rights: For a Better Use of EU Powers

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 841-850
Author(s):  
Amandine GARDE
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
European Union ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
Unhealthy Food ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Tobacco Products ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
The Eu

The marketing of tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy food and gambling services is harmful to public health, the European economy and sustainability. If the European Union (EU) has embraced the regulation of cross-border marketing for tobacco products for over two decades, it has consistently resisted evidence-driven calls to regulate the marketing of other harmful commodities, preferring instead to rely on ineffective industry pledges. This contribution reflects on why the EU has failed to use its competence to regulate cross-border marketing more systematically to protect health and highlights why the time is ripe to reconsider the issue, before concluding with a possible way forward.

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