Telling stories about European Union Health Law: The emergence of a new field of law

The ideational narrative power of law has now solidified, and continues to solidify, ‘European Union health law’, into an entity with a distinctive legal identity. EU health law was previously seen as either non-existent, or so broad as to be meaningless, or as existing only in relations between EU law and health (the ‘and’ approach), or as consisting of a body of barely or loosely connected policy domains (the ‘patchwork’ approach). The process of bringing EU health law into being is a process of narration. The ways in which EU health law is narrated (and continues to be narrated) involve three main groups of actors: the legislature, courts and the academy

Justifications for sex discrimination in employment : a comparative study of the law of the European Community, in the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany.

The removal of discrimination between women and men in the workplace, in order to open up equality of opportunity in employment, is a measure of social policy regarded as desirable by makers of law and policy in Western liberal democracies, including the four legal systems examined in the present study. Legislative provisions with the specific purpose of removal of sex discrimination in employment have been in place in those legal systems for a number of years: since the 1960s, in the case of the United States of America (Civil Rights Act 1964), since the 1970s, in the case of the United Kingdom (Equal Pay Act 1970), since the 1980s, in the case of the Federal Republic of Germany (EG-Anpassungsgesetz 1980) and, in the case of the European Community, since its foundation in 1957 (Treaty of Rome, Article 119). Now that comprehensive legislation with the purpose of removal of sex discrimination in employment is in place, in the four legal systems examined, attention should be focused on the effectiveness of the legislation and on proposals for its continued improvement. The effectiveness of a particular aspect of the general legislative provisions concerning sex discrimination in employment is the focus of the present study. The issue with which the study is concerned is that of exceptions to the rule of non-discrimination, or 'justifications' for discriminatory behaviour in the employment sphere. It is common ground that any statement of general principle (including the principle of nondiscrimination on grounds of sex) will be subject to exceptions. The exceptions form the subject of the present study. Exceptions to a general principle should be applied in such a way as to avoid undermining the core principle. The study seeks to explore qualifications to the general principle of non-discrimination in employment, and to refine those qualifications, so as to protect the application of the general principle

"The division of competence and regulation of sex equality in social protection in European Union social law"

The general aim of this paper is to explore the development of European Union regulation of sex equality in social protection. 'Social protection' encompasses both social security and social assistance or welfare. It refers to the whole field of policy which ensures, either through private or public provision, at the very least that the basic needs of people (food, housing) required by human dignity are met. The social protection systems of Western democracies such as the member states of the EU aim to guarantee rather more protection especially against the risks entailed in withdrawal from the labour market. The paper's main focus of enquiry is Directive 79/7/EEC (the Directive), which provides for equality in state social security schemes. Related policy measures, in particular Article 119 EC and Directive 86/378/EEC (as amended), which regulate sex equality in occupational social security, will also be relevant in building up a picture of the development of the EU's sex equality measures in the whole field of social protection, whether publicly or privately provided

“‘Social Solidarity’: A Buttress Against Internal Market Law?”

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the emergent concept of ‘social solidarity,’ in the context of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice and the interplay between national social policy provision and the EU’s internal market and competition law. Recently the Court has begun to deal more explicitly with the potential problems which the supremacy of internal market law, reinforced by individual litigation, may pose for national social welfare systems. The Court has done so through articulating the principle of ‘social solidarity,’ according to which restrictions on internal market law may be justified. The paper will consider whether ‘social solidarity,’ as conceived by the Court, is an effective means of protecting social policy entitlements within the EU’s multi-level system of governance

"Mapping the contours of European Union health law and policy"

This paper explores the new field within European social policy of European Union (EU) health policy. My principal aim is simply to identify the main constituent parts of this emerging new policy field. Although a number of social and political scientists have drawn attention to an emerging European Union health policy, this area has as yet been the subject of little attention from the legal perspective. Therefore, this paper will focus on the legal construction of the EU's health policy, paying particular attention to the ways in which legal concepts and mechanisms are contributing to the contours of this new field of EU activity

Healthcare and the EU: the Law and Policy Patchwork

© 2010, Cambridge University Press. Introduction: Governments of European welfare states face an uncomfortable predicament. To transfer their welfare-state obligations to the EU level would jeopardize the political basis of their legitimacy. However, since at least the mid-1980s, the processes of European integration, to which those governments are irreversibly committed, have become increasingly pervasive. As a result, European integration creates a problem-solving gap in that ‘member governments have lost more control over national welfare policies, in the face of the pressures of integrated markets, than the EU has gained de facto in transferred authority’, substantial though the latter may be. At face value, health care seems to be a case in point to illustrate this predicament. Indeed, generally speaking, with some limited exceptions, the European Union has no legal competence to adopt EU law in the field of health care, this being a matter of national competence according to the EU's founding or ‘constitutional’ document, the EC Treaty (to be replaced by the Treaty of Lisbon 4 once it has been ratified by all the Member States). Unsurprisingly, both Member States and EU institutions are heavily bound in their ability and willingness (on account of national interests, political sensitivities and the huge diversity of health care systems in an EU of 27) to issue legislation in this area. Those who are (politically) responsible for health care at the domestic level are faced with a second problem: since the very beginnings of what is now the European Union, other areas of EU law have had unintended effects in health care contexts.status: publishe