Bartlett, Oliver
(2016)
The EU's Competence Gap in Public Health and Non-Communicable Disease Policy.
Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law, 5 (1).
pp. 50-81.
ISSN 2050-1714
Abstract
The European Union (EU) has had a Treaty competence in the field of public health since
1993, however the slow development of this competence has not kept up with the rate at
which the EU's policy ambitions in public health have developed, especially in the field of
non-communicable disease (NCD) prevention. This has led the EU to rely on alternative
legal bases in order to realise these ambitions, leading to a 'competence gap' between the
legal bases that authorise EU action on NCD prevention and the policies the EU would like
to pursue.
This paper will explore, in three stages, how this competence gap might be addressed.
First, it will examine the arguments for and against giving the EU public health competences.
Second, it will analyse the EU's specific public health competence in Article 168 of the
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and the general internal market
harmonisation competence in Article 114 TFEU, in order to explore the precise boundaries
of each competence as legal bases for EU public health action. Third, it will explore the legal
relationship between Articles 168 and 114 and explain why, despite a more powerful specific
public health competence being a theoretically neat solution to the competence gap, the
likelihood of the EU being given increased public health powers is low.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Public health; Non-communicable diseases; EU public health competences; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Law |
| Item ID: |
11821 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.7574/cjcl.05.01.50 |
| Depositing User: |
Oliver Bartlett
|
| Date Deposited: |
22 Nov 2019 15:28 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law |
| Publisher: |
Heinonline |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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