EU health policy in the aftermath of COVID-19: neofunctionalism and crisis-driven integration

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shook the European Union (EU). The EU responded to the multifaceted challenge with an integrative leap forward. Member States substantially increased their investment in existing health policy tools such as civil protection and financing for health initiatives. There was innovation in EU law, where a process of redefining public health began, and in strategies for vaccines and pharmaceuticals, where the EU took on a direct and significant role in medicines procurement for the first time. We use the framework of neofunctionalism to analyse developments in health policy during the pandemic to further understand the dynamics of integration and, in particular, to understand why EU Member States opted for further integration in response to the pandemic. As neofunctionalism might predict, Member States solved problems born of integration with more integration: preserving the internal market, insuring against disasters, preventing border closures and enhancing EU power in vaccine development and procurement. Reflecting decades of entrepreneurs who had created various mechanisms, they primarily built on pre-existing, if often weak, structures and enhanced EU governance more than competences. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of European Public Policy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Towards more comprehensive health law and policy research.

In this comment, and drawing on the papers in the special issue, we ask: what are the core questions for the future of research into health law and policy, and European health law and policy more specifically? We first sketch the general functions and values of health law and policy. We then outline how these functions and values are affected by globalisation and Europeanisation, on the one hand, and technological change and digitalisation, on the other. In light of these developments we carve out some questions for future research and the implications of this agenda for the academic community that is working on European health law and policy.

EU health law and policy: shaping a future research agenda.

The relevance of the European Union (EU) for health has been widely recognised within the health community for some time, and is increasingly apparent to European policy-makers and publics. Despite being an area of policy that national governments would prefer to keep exclusive control of, and though in the past it has rarely been at the top of the agenda, many elements of health have been gradually 'Europeanised'. This special issue marks the culmination of a British Academy-funded project - EU Health Law and Policy: Shaping a Future Research Agenda - which sought to build on the growing web of expertise in this field and reflect upon the future of health as an EU competence, at a time when it appeared to be under threat.