Blog post 200331
Health: a highly perfectible added value for the EU
By Isabelle Marchais, expert fellow for the Jacques Delors Institute.
Translation from French by Emma Morton Saliou
Health policy is an exclusive competence of the Member States; the EU has only a supporting competence, essentially to provide coordination and cooperation actions. The conclusion of the Covid-19 crisis should be an opportunity to review existing arrangements and to consider the establishment of a genuine common European health policy which also encompasses industrial production. More than ever, citizens are asking Europe to protect them, in terms of health and in other areas.
The scattered closing of borders, varying levels of confinement, the refusal to distribute equipment to neighbours, the misappropriation of masks: at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Member States reacted as they wished and showed a withdrawal into themselves contrary to the empathy and solidarity that could be expected from the members of a community. This attitude persists today – despite a number of genuine gestures of intra-European mutual aid – and is strongly felt by Italy, which has been hit hard by the health crisis.
National leaders have appeared ill-prepared, without emergency plans, lacking in equipment, and seemed to be slow to grasp the extent and seriousness of the situation. Yet it is the European Union, once again, that has been accused of failing to respond to the need to protect its citizens. These criticisms are all the more severe considering that the EU, let us not forget, has only meagre powers in the field of human health and is currently doing what it can to maximise the tools at its disposal, having also shown some hesitation in calibrating its true added value.
SUR LE MÊME THÈME
ON THE SAME THEME
PUBLICATIONS
Declining birth rate in Europe
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/decryptagebleu.png)
An ambitious plan without adequate financing?
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Europe, a partner to anti-COVID vaccination in Africa
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/decryptagebleu.png)
From words to action
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/policypaperbleu.png)
TOWARDS A EUROPEAN HEALTH UNION
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/rapportbleu.png)
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION IN A TROUBLED 2020
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/decryptagebleu.png)
Young people facing the crisis: bouncing back with the EU
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/boussole.png)
COVAX: Europe put to the test of global vaccine solidarity
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/decryptagebleu.png)
European Union governance in response to crises
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/policypaperbleu.png)
Spending EU subsidies well:
A challenge for Member States
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/boussole.png)
A European vaccine passport? A healthy debate
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Europeans facing vaccine hesitancy
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
A new European Health Agency ? For what ?
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Greening EU Trade 4:
How to “green” trade agreements?
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/policypaperbleu.png)
Framing the state aid debate for the post-covid era the Brexit challenge
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
SURE or the EU to aid European workers
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Building a clean mobility system in times of COVID-19
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/policypaperbleu.png)
The new political economy of Brexit
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Trade in pandemic times
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Crisis Notebook
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Jacques Delors Institute supports letters to EC Vice Presidents
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
An ambitious recovery budget, tough negotiations ahead
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
CRISIS NOTEBOOK
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
CARNETS DE CRISE
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Le covid-19 remet-il en cause l’Europe de la défense ?
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Greener after
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Judges vs. technocrats
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
The race for a Covid-19 vaccine :
A major challenge for Europe
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
The EU budget and COVID: We need a “plan B”
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Covid-19: the urgent need for stricter foreign investment controls
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Covid-19 and the Mobilisation of Public Development Banks in the EU
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
COVID-19 Crisis: An Occasion to Accelerate the Transition Towards a new Development Model ?
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
SURE : A welcome LYNCHPIN for A European unemployment re-insurance
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
The EU facing the coronavirus:
A political urgency to embody European solidarity
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Overcoming covid-19 crises
by building a clean and resilient Europe
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
The health crisis should not eclipse the migration crisis
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Solidarity within the Eurozone :
how much, what for, for how long ?
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Tackling the coronavirus crisis:
how can the EU budget help?
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Fiscal policy-making in the time of Coronavirus
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
“We need a global alliance
against the virus”
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Coronavirus
krach financier et krach politique
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Corona: A European Safety Net for the Fiscal Response
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/blogpostbleu.png)
Rule of law conditionality
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/decryptagebleu.png)
MÉDIAS
MEDIAS
La bataille des subventions menace l’unité de l’Europe
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/articlebleu.png)
L’Europe de la santé : des avancées en façade, des réserves dans les faits
![](https://institutdelors.eu/wp-content/themes/Avada-Child-Theme/images/articlebleu.png)