scholarly journals Understanding the factors that contribute to the similarities and differences in SARS-CoV-2 testing strategies across Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (Supplement_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
S Kamga ◽  
B Voordouw ◽  
M Koopmans ◽  
A Timen
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Public Health Laboratory ◽  
Laboratory Diagnostics ◽  
Testing Strategy ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Testing Strategies ◽  
Diagnostic Capacity

Abstract Background Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, the importance of testing suspected cases has been stressed by various governments and international organizations. Early in the pandemic, the WHO's Secretary General emphasized the need to ‘test, test, test'. Nonetheless, there were some evident differences between European Member States' testing strategies. In order to get an understanding of why and how these differences developed we conducted a mixed methods study in several EU member states. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 professionals with expertise in public health, laboratory diagnostics and policymaking in 8 European countries, namely Croatia, Italy, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Spain, Latvia, Italy, Slovenia. Based on interview results, a questionnaire is developed to quantify to which degree a larger audience of public health, laboratory and policy-making professionals believe identified factors played a role in the national SARS-CoV-2 testing strategy. Preliminary results 3 factors seem to play an important role in the diagnostic capacity and testing strategy. Firstly, differences in the countries' available stockpile and their ability to efficiently procure diagnostic equipment influenced testing strategies. Secondly, the variation in institutions that took ownership of the issues of developing, executing and developing the policies led to differences in the testing strategies. Lastly, all countries aimed to follow international advice and guidelines, which led to the convergence of testing strategies over time. Conclusions In order to be prepared for a pandemic of COVID-19's scale and make necessary adjustments in capacity building, it is important that Member States understand the factors that play an important role in both their own and other European countries' diagnostic preparedness strategies.

scholarly journals Development of a Public Health Preparedness Competency Model for EU Member States

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (suppl_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
MA Stoto ◽  
E Savoia ◽  
C Nelson ◽  
R Piltch-Loeb ◽  
S Guicciardi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Competency Model ◽  
Public Health Preparedness ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States

European Union Rights and Values in Human Health

2019 ◽  
pp. 16-51
Author(s):  
Anniek de Ruijter
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
European Union ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Eu Fundamental Rights ◽  
The Eu

This book looks at the impact of the expanding power of the EU in terms of fundamental rights and values. The current chapter lays down the framework for this analysis. Law did not always have a central role to play in the context of medicine and health. The role of law grew after the Second Word War and the Nuremberg Doctors Trials (1947), in which preventing the repetition of atrocities that were committed in the name of medicine became a guidepost for future law regarding patients’ rights and bioethics. In the period after the War, across the EU Member States, health law developed as a legal discipline in which a balance was struck in medicine and public health between law, bioethics, and fundamental rights. The role of EU fundamental rights protections in the context of public health and health care developed in relation with the growth of multilevel governance and litigation (national, international, Council of Europe, and European Union). For the analysis here, this chapter develops an EU rights and values framework that goes beyond the strictly legal and allows for a ‘normative language’ that takes into consideration fundamental rights as an expression of important shared values in the context of the European Union. The perspective of EU fundamental rights and values can demonstrate possible tensions caused by EU health policy: implications in terms of fundamental rights can show how highly sensitive national policy issues may be affected by the Member States’ participation in EU policymaking activities.

scholarly journals Europeanization of the Administrative Law of Ukraine: peculiarities of modern tectonic of mechanisms of the influence

2020 ◽  
pp. 150-154
Author(s):  
Olesya Radyshevska
Keyword(s):  
Technical Assistance ◽  
Administrative Law ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Law And Legislation

The article explores the contemporary forms, mechanisms and models of Europeanization of the administrative law of Ukraine in the light of it renewal as a branch of national law and legislation. It is noted that foreign scientists pay special attention to the classification of the influence of the provisions of European administrative law (in the widest sense) on the administrative law of European countries. The author analyzes the extensive classification of the phenomenon of Europeanization existing in European administrative and legal science. It is stated that Europeanization of administrative law as branch of legislation has mostly vertical, direct, obligatory, "hard", positive influence, since the boundaries of the system of sources of administrative law are being expanded, and it is the obligation of the subjects of administrative law to apply its rules already as part of national legislation. At the same time, the Europeanization of administrative law as a branch of law can have the characteristics of vertical, direct, mandatory, harmonizing Europeanization and also with horizontal influence which voluntary, indirect, selective nature, exercised by various actors ("legislative bodies" of European organizations, the parliaments of European countries, the practice of public administration and judicial institutions, experts from technical assistance projects), etc. It is concluded that the mechanisms of Europeanization from the EU legal field regarding EU Member States will differ from mechanisms towards Ukraine. However, the mechanisms of influence used by Council of Europe and OSCE among their member states in the area of administrative law are identical, since they imply the application of the rules of "soft" law, "soft" cooperation, socialization and "lessons learned". The aim of their subjects is to satisfy their legal expectations that dominate the European administrative space. These mechanisms usually are used in dialectical unity.

scholarly journals The cultural constituent of the European Soft Power in the Republic of Kazakhstan

2020 ◽  
Vol 132 (3) ◽  
pp. 103-113
Author(s):  
A.Zh. Seitkhamit ◽  
◽  
S.M. Nurdavletova
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
European Countries ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Eu

The European Union dynamically exercises various forms and methods of the Soft Power in its foreign policy. The article reviews its main principles and characteristics as well as conceptual basics. As an example, the article considers the European cultural diplomacy in the Republic of Kazakhstan as a method of soft power. The authors pay an attention specific actions of the European cultural diplomacy in Kazakhstan as well as the mechanisms of its implementation. Apart from that, cultural soft power of two European countries – France and Germany – are considered as separate actions of the EU member states in the sphere of culture. Finally, it assesses importance of Kazakhstan for the EU and effectiveness of such policy in this country.

scholarly journals EU ASYLUM SYSTEM IN AND AFTER THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: DISCLOSING THE WEAKNESSES OF THE CURRENT RULES AND ASSESSING THE PROSPECTS OF THE NEW PACT ON MIGRATION AND ASYLUM

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bojana Čučković
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Current Phase ◽  
Member States ◽  
International Protection ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Emergency Situations ◽  
Human Rights Standards ◽  
The Eu

The paper analyses the influence that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the functioning of the European asylum system. The analysis is divided into three parts and addresses problematic issues associated with different stages of the pandemic. In the first part of the paper, the author outlines the asylum practices of EU Member States in the initial stage of the Covid-19 pandemic during which the pandemic was perceived as a state of emergency. By exploring the legal possibilities to derogate both from the EU asylum rules and international human rights standards, the author offers conclusions as regards limits of derogations and the legality of Member States’ practices, especially their failure to differentiate between rules that are susceptive of being derogated in emergency situations and those that are not. The second part of the paper analyses the current phase of the pandemic in which it is perceived as a 'new normal' and focuses on making the EU asylum system immune to Covid-19 influence to the greatest extent possible and in line with relevant EU and human rights rules. The author insists on the vulnerability as an inherent feature of persons in need of international protection and researches upon the relationship between the two competing interests involved – protection of asylum seekers and ensuring public health as a legitimate reason for restricting certain asylum seekers’ rights. The final part of the paper analyses the prospects of the future EU asylum system, as announced by the New Pact on Migration and Asylum in September 2020, to adapt to the exigencies of both the current Covid-19 crisis and pandemics that are yet to come. With an exclusive focus on referral to Covid-19 and provisions relevant for the current and future pandemics, the author criticizes several solutions included in the instruments that make up the Pact. It is concluded that the Pact failed to offer solutions for problems experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic and that, under the pretext of public health, it prioritizes the interests of Member States over the interests of applicants for international protection.

Governing through consensus? The European Semester, soft power and education governance in the EU

2021 ◽  
pp. 147490412110556
Author(s):  
Katri Eeva
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
Policy Work ◽  
Constructivist Perspective ◽  
The Eu

This paper discusses the workings of the European Semester (ES) in relation to the policy field of education. My study shows how the ES enables the steering of education policy through encouraging specific economic and employment-related actions by European Union (EU) member states. With a focus on the relationship between the EU institutions and member states, this paper examines how the ES discursively promotes certain approaches to education through country-specific recommendations (CSRs). In this study, CSRs are revealed as policy spaces where European and national interests are brought together, enabling shared problem definition and collective learning. The paper illustrates how policy moves through translation and negotiation in the construction of CSR. The evidence drawn on here comes from analysis of CSRs in 2011–2016 and 15 semi-structured interviews with key policy actors, mainly from the European Commission, Council and Parliament. This paper concludes that CSRs work through soft power to manage governing tensions through translation and by building convergence and consensus. The analysis is framed theoretically by research on governing and knowledge and draws on a social constructivist perspective on policy work.

Balkan public distrust will endanger vaccine take-up

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Member States ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Relative Safety ◽  
Balkan Countries ◽  
To Come ◽  
Clear Majority ◽  
The Eu

Significance Non-EU Balkan countries are lagging behind EU member states in securing access to vaccines. However, survey data show that a clear majority of citizens would refuse to accept a government-sanctioned vaccine, representing a possible risk to public health for years to come. Impacts Russia and China will try to boost their influence by offering their own vaccines more quickly and in quantity. The relative safety of Russian and Western vaccines will be an issue in Russian disinformation campaigns. The EU will lose ground in the geopolitical contest, with doses not available via the WHO-GAVI COVAX scheme until April.

Poverty Transitions and Trigger Events across EU Groups of Countries: Evidence from EU-SILC

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 745-772 ◽  
Author(s):  
VERONICA POLIN ◽  
MICHELE RAITANO
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Data ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Income Poverty ◽  
Welfare Regime ◽  
Member States ◽  
Household Characteristics ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Poverty Transitions ◽  
New Eu Member States ◽  
Trigger Events

AbstractThe dynamics of income poverty in European countries have been extensively analysed using the ECHP dataset, run from 1994 to 2001 in the ‘old’ fifteen member states. Using EU-SILC longitudinal data, the purpose of this paper is to update this type of analysis to 2006 by including the ‘new’ EU member states and focusing on poverty mobility. The demographic and economic events associated with households falling into or exiting poverty are analysed through both descriptive analyses and logit regressions. The analysis compares six groups of countries clustered according to welfare regime typologies. The results reveal that most poverty transitions are associated with economic events, but the entry rates after the occurrence of demographic events are also crucial. With respect to poverty entry rates, differences among groups of countries are consistent with their welfare regime typologies, but a less clear ranking among them emerges when considering poverty exit rates and when regressions are estimated while controlling for household characteristics.

scholarly journals Comparative Analysis of Tax Policy Indices of EU Countries, Central Europe Countries and Ukraine

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liana Moskalyk ◽  
Roman Moskalyk
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Tax Policy ◽  
Capital Gains ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Tax Policies ◽  
Member States ◽  
Central European ◽  
Business Taxes ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Tax Revenues

The article analyzes the tax policies of EU member states, Central European countries and Ukraine for the period 2005–2018, in particular: the level of tax revenues, profit tax, other taxes on business, taxes on income, profits and capital gains, taxes on goods and services, labor tax and contributions, time to prepare and pay taxes, number of tax payments. As a result of the study, we see signs of convergence in tax policies of Ukraine and EU member states, especially since 2014 (after the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine). Tax policy trends over recent years in Ukraine are most in line with those of post-socialist Central European countries. This may be a sign that Ukraine is following a similar path to tax policy reforms, as is the case of Central European countries while integrating into European Union. The important issue for Ukraine is equitable distribution of tax pressure on business (optimize) and individuals (weaken) in order to move closer to EU indicators. Key words: tax policy; tax revenues; taxation; budget; economy of Ukraine; European Union; Central European countries.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document