Coordinating National Responses to Serious CrossBorder Threats to Health in the European Union: European Health Union and beyond

The project of the European Health Union ('EHU'), a direct response to experience gained from the Covid-19 pandemic, has adapted the institutional, and legal design of the European Union ('EU') in order to permit the EU to react to serious cross-border threats to health in a more uniform and efficient way. While the EHU has brought about important shifts, certain gaps or weaknesses in the coordination of national responses to serious cross-border threats to health can, however, be identified even with the EHU and merit further discussion. This discussion should also encompass the issue of revisiting the separation of competences between the EU and the Member States in the area of combating serious cross-border threats to health because the existing model of the separation of competences in this area continues to impose important limits on the coordination of national responses to serious cross-border threats to health.