The European Union’s securitisation of global health: was COVID-19 a Zeitenwende?

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• dc.contributor.author Fernández, Óscar
• dc.date.accessioned 2024-09-30T09:14:21Z
• dc.date.available 2024-09-30T09:14:21Z
• dc.date.issued 2024
• dc.description.abstract Almost 30 years since the Maastricht Treaty provided an explicit legal basis in the health realm, the European Union (EU) declared global health an “essential pillar” of its external action. Yet, it is still seeking to “come of age” as a global health actor. This might be facilitated by the securitisation of health, which was evident during the COVID-19 crisis, often framed as a war against a common enemy. However, the literature is yet to establish whether these analogies were systematically embraced by EU institutions, signalling a Zeitenwende – or “epochal tectonic shift” – in the EU’s health-related discourse. Through an analysis of key strategic documents and public statements, this article determines the extent to which COVID-19 drove the attempted securitisation of global health in the EU. Relatedly, it discusses whether this framing might be conducive to an enhanced EU actorness on the world stage. The article concludes that, after COVID-19 struck, some EU institutions did intensify their “health security” rhetoric in pursuit of an expanded, more “mature” role. While this shift was neither widespread nor enduring enough to be characterised as “epochal”, it does denote the EU’s turn towards a less altruistic conception of its global health action.
• dc.description.sponsorship This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovative programme under grant agreement no. 962533.
• dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
• dc.identifier.citation Fernández Ó. The European Union’s securitisation of global health: was COVID-19 a Zeitenwende? European Security. 2024;33(3):449-73. DOI: 10.1080/09662839.2024.2376605
• dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2024.2376605
• dc.identifier.issn 0966-2839
• dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/61265
• dc.language.iso eng
• dc.publisher Taylor & Francis
• dc.relation.ispartof European Security. 2024;33(3):449-73
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/962533
• dc.rights © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
• dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• dc.rights.uri http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• dc.subject.keyword European Union
• dc.subject.keyword Global health
• dc.subject.keyword Securitisation
• dc.subject.keyword Health security
• dc.subject.keyword COVID-19
• dc.subject.keyword Actorness
• dc.title The European Union’s securitisation of global health: was COVID-19 a Zeitenwende?
• dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
• dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion