EU health policy: To what extent the EU got involved in the field of health?

Abstract

Although not openly identified in treaties until the Maastricht Treaty, health has always been a crucial area for the European Union (EU), since freedoms provided and regulations brought by common market also dealt with several sections of the health sector. All concerning parts of health sector have to be subject to both freedoms and regulations of single market system. Despite the value given to health and related issues, a separate or supranational policy dealing with health issues has not been formed by the EU. The member states keep their privilege on health policies. However, the EU does not stay completely aside of health issues; on the contrary, the EU got involved in certain areas of health, especially the ones which have cross-border implications. In this chapter, the matter of to what extent the EU got involved in health issues is researched and the question of if the EU has a concrete health policy is analyzed. © 2015, IGI Global. All rights reserved.