Creating a European Health Union in Times of COVID-19: A Trajectory Towards a Fundamental Right to Health Care?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2022
Summary
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 appears to have provided the European Union (EU, the Union) with a window of opportunity to infiltrate the arena of policy-making in the field of health, which is evident in the proliferation of initiatives under the auspices of the creation of a European Health Union (EHU). To that effect, one of the first steps taken has been, inter alia, the Commission proposal for a regulation on serious cross-border health threats, which, if adopted, seeks to repeal an existing decision on the same issue. However, how influential can the EHU initiative be post-pandemic? This contribution seeks to discover what the role of COVID-19 has been for the materialisation of an EHU and what the implications are (if there are any) for the future of European health care. By combining an interestbased and structuralist narrative on the recognition of a right to health care, this contribution argues that COVID-19 has given the EU a marginal opportunity to prove its ability to act on health threats. Success in doing so may contribute towards resolving the joint-decision trap by providing the Member States with the confidence in the EU as a health actor.
INTRODUCTION
In 2017, the European Union (EU, the Union) and its Member States committed to ensuring that everyone has a ‘right to timely access to affordable, preventive and curative health care of good quality’ with the adoption of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR). This non-binding obligation echoes the treaty-based objective ‘to promote […] the well-being of its peoples’ under Article 3(1) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the obligation to ensure that ‘everyone has the right of access to preventive health care and the right to benefit from medical treatment’ under Article 35 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFREU). Clearly, there is an EU-wide commitment towards the recognition of a right to health (and health care) – the practical materialisation of which, however, appears to still be lacking. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated in March 2020 that ‘we will stop at nothing to save lives’, referring to the Commission's commitment to protecting European citizens from cross-border health threats and strengthening its role in European health.
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- European Yearbook on Human Rights 2021 , pp. 137 - 158Publisher: IntersentiaPrint publication year: 2021