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Lydie Cabane in E-International Relations on Improving EU Response to Pandemics

Lydie Cabane, Assistant Professor at ISGA, has written an article in E-International Relations to discuss the key lessons from other crisis management domains to improve the EU response to pandemics.

In light of the new waves of COVID-19 that EU countries are facing, the issue of strengthening EU members' cooperation on health has become increasingly pressing. The issue of an EU Health Union is now at the forefront of political debates after being barely conceivable for a long time. 

EU shortcomings

At almost every stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, shortcomings appeared in managing the crisis. Analysing EU crisis management regimes to evaluate and understand the limits of EU action is done by looking at two critical dimensions, writes Cabane, '(1) who has the power to make decisions: the EU or Member States?  And (2) what type of legal instruments are available at the EU level to organise Member States’ cooperation when a cross-border crisis strikes? Are these instruments compulsory or do they rely on voluntary cooperation?'

The COVID-19 crisis has offered opportunities to structurally reform the instruments of the health security framework. Cabane and fellow author Anne-Laure Beaussier hope, based on analysis of other crisis management frameworks, that the current proposals will create new layers of organisations dealing with cross-border health as well as tackle the more delicate question of increased monitoring and steering competences to the EU level, adding important value to national action. 

Read the full article here

Lydie Cabane is an Assistant Professor in Governance of Crises at the Institute for Security and Global Affairs, with an interdisciplinary background in sociology and political science. Her research aims to explain the wide diffusion of crisis management in a variety of domains worldwide, and to contribute to an analysis of states transformations, governance, regulation and public policy.

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