EUROPEAN HEALTH UNION AS A DIRECTION FOR FURTHER DEEPENING OF EU INTEGRATION

Abstract

The article examines the European Health Union as a direction for further deepening of EU integration. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed structural weaknesses and market failures in our foresight, preparedness and ability to respond coherently, rapidly and appropriately to protect our citizens from health crises, thus demonstrating the need and importance of coordinated action on EU level. The EU has concluded that for effective counteraction the threat pandemic poses, European health authorities need to work seamlessly together, to pool their resources and expertise, and to operate as jointly as possible and in close coordination with the economic authorities. This is the only way to counter the cross-border health threat of COVID-19 effectively. With this in mind, the President of the European Commission U. von der Leyen in her State of the Union Address at the European Parliament proposed the creation of the European Union for Health as the only right political and administrative step in the EU settings. The European Commission’s Communication sets out the additional actions that need to be taken in the immediate future, both at the European and the national level to increase EU resilience to all cross-border health threats and provide all European citizens with the high level of public health they expect and deserve. It is both EU and its member States shared and urgent responsibility to take forward these measures quickly and thoroughly, and to overcome the fragmentation and gaps in instruments, information, and mind-sets, which will otherwise continue to make Europeans collectively vulnerable and endanger their way of life. The European Health Union should be seen in the context of existing integrated European governance strategies, such as the European Energy Union and the European Green Course, taken and adopted for overcoming problems of governance fragmentation and inadequacyof fragmented policy responses to cross-cutting policy challenges.