The Cross-Border Patients’ Rights Directive represents an attempt to resolve the unclear situation that had developed due to ‘negative integration’ within the field of healthcare. While the adoption of the directive ends the EU-level decision process, it represents the start of the...

Translating complex, politicised and ambiguous European legislation and case law into practice is the difficult everyday condition for street-level bureaucrats in European Member States. Yet their crucial role remains remarkably understudied in EU compliance literature. This paper argues that...

The practical realization of European Union (EU) rights and obligations depends to a considerable extent on how national public authorities apply EU legislation in their daily work. A growing number of EU compliance studies have probed the transposition of EU law and discussed the importance and...

Recent jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) marks a striking shift towards a more restrictive interpretation of EU citizens' rights. The Court's turnaround is not only highly relevant for practical debates about ‘Social Europe' or ‘welfare migration', but also enlightening...

National courts have been key players in the legal push for Europe, though notably to varying degrees. This paper examines the persisting variations in the referral rates of national courts and the underlying causal factors, aiming to better understand why some member states' courts have been...

The chapter examines the tensions between welfare states on the one hand and social Europe on the other and colliding principles in their historical setting. In particular, the chapter focuses on Social Services of General Interest (SSGI) as core institutions of the welfare state and the...

In various aspects health care constitutes a less likely or critical case of both European integration and Europeanization (Eckstein 1975). As set out explicitly in the Treaty, the organization of health care is the responsibility of the Member States (art. 168 (7) of the Lisbon Treaty,...

Although the European Union (EU) has not formally been assigned welfare policy competence, it has for decades regulated social benefits between the Member States. The social rights and obligations of the European migrant have for long been safeguarded by the EU, and the mutual responsibility for...

Healthcare has only slowly appeared on the European Union’s (EU) policy agenda. EU involvement in policies concerning the organization, financing and the provision of diagnosis, care and cures to ill people developed along three fragmented tracks: (a) EU public health policies concerning the...