Crossing borders: A critical review of the role of the European Court of Justice in EU health policy

Who wants to cross borders in the EU for healthcare? An analysis of the Eurobarometer data in 2007 and 2014

“…Some authors claim that cross-border patient mobility could redistribute supply and demand towards a better provision of care regarding safety, quality and efficiency. 2 Also, the decrease in the willingness to travel to seek care abroad could mean that unmet needs within the country were reduced following the Directive. Indeed, some literature reports that the Directive was an opportunity to implement reforms 10 including legislation on patients' rights, 16,17 the definition of health benefits package and compulsory indemnity insurance, however, although with variations across countries, 34 it seems thus that the Directive had positive spillovers.…”

“…Nevertheless, EU citizens have demanded the right to freely access other EU health systems since the end of the 90s, which was warranted by decisions of the European Court of Justice. 2 As a result, the negotiations began for the future Directive 2011/24/EU on patients' rights in cross-border healthcare.…”

The development of EU health policy and the Covid-19 pandemic: trends and implications

“…It was not until the late 1980s and early 1990s that health gained a treaty base, and Aspect A (Treaty base, score 1.0, 1.5) falls in Zone 1 (techno-rational) because the resulting texts carefully constrained the EU's role, limiting it to areas where cooperation was logically necessary (such as cross-border crises) and keeping it out of the more political and divisive issues that characteristic national health policy. Moreover, these developments were driven by functional spill-over from the internal market via the SEA, response to crises (the strengthening of the health mandate in the Amsterdam Treaty, for instance, is understood as a response to the BSE outbreak), and legal interventions by the Courts (Brooks 2012;Greer 2006). These drivers make use of bureaucratised and formalised structures.…”

How Bureaucracies Listen to Courts: Bureaucratized Calculations and European Law

“…The case of health care policy spotlights what is in the wings of these other literatures: the policy effects of courts in themselves. It is a case study of the effects of EU law on policy, without the legislation or extensive interest group activity that marks studies of both courts and implementation in the EU (as a case of the court triggering Commission entrepreneurialism, lobbying, and the associated politics of integration, it has already been researched in some detail: e.g., Baeten 2005; Martinsen 2005; Greer 2006, 2009b; Obermaier 2009; Wasserfallen 2010; Brooks 2012).…”