NUPI skole

Scientific article

Published:

In the Blind Spot of the Norwegian EU Debate: EU Health Preparedness After COVID-19

Written by

Øyvind Svendsen
Senior Research Fellow

Ed.

Summary:

This article challenges the Norwegian EU debate by focusing on an overlooked but increasingly important policy area for European cooperation, namely health policy and more specifically health preparedness. The EU has started major processes related to health preparedness in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Norway takes part in some of these processes through the EEA agreement but is also currently excluded from important areas. This article serves two purposes: it maps ongoing EU development in health preparedness and assesses the extent to which this area should occupy more space in the Norwegian EU debate, including the sustainability of the current status quo. The article further identifies two specific areas that are central to Norway in relation to health preparedness. The first concerns the development of the EU’s Health Union and Norway’s political work to ensure formal access to all the initiatives that have recently been developed in the EU. The other concerns the effects that the EU’s intensified work on health preparedness has for the Norwegian health industry. The article concludes that Norwegian vulnerabilities are particularly linked to Norway’s political role as an EU outsider, but that these vulnerabilities must be considered in the context of any contribution the Norwegian health industry can make in the European health market if Norway becomes more closely connected to the Health Union.

Themes

  • Pandemics
  • The EU

Written by

Øyvind Svendsen
Senior Research Fellow

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