The European Response to COVID-19: From Regulatory Emulation to Regulatory Coordination?

Abstract

Due to its borderless nature, COVID-19 has been a matter of common European interest since its very first detection on the continent. Yet this pandemic outbreak has largely been handled as an essentially national matter. Member States adopted their own different, uncoordinated and at times competing national responses according to their distinctive risk analysis frameworks, with little regard1 for the scientific and management advice provided by the European Union (EU), notably its dedicated legal framework for action on cross-border health threats.2 To justify such an outcome as the inevitable consequence of the EU’s limited competence in public health is a well-rehearsed yet largely inaccurate argument3 that calls for closer scrutiny.