[MUSIC] Okay, hello everyone. Today we will be studying the European Union, EU, as a player or an actor as regard global governance of global health. EU is a very interesting case study, because EU is something which is quite unique on the international stage. EU is on the one hand, an actor for global health governance because EU is a political body. EU plays a role on the international stage. It is present in international organization like the World Health Organization, or also, for example, very important in trade organizations, like the World Trade Organization, where it represents all its member states. But EU is also a very interesting case study because EU is not only an actor somehow EU could appear as a model for understanding what governance of global health issues should be. Why? Because actually EU is, itself, an international body. It is composed of member states. It has about half a billion inhabitants, and it has 28 member state. So EU is, somehow, a many smaller sized, small scale, international community. And on that respect, it creates its own normativity inside EU which may have relevance for global health governance outside the EU. So even when EU acts as an actor, it is qualified in international relation theories, as what we call a soft power. Actually, EU is not a full-fledged power, EU can act in international organization, EU can act in commercial deals, EU can act as a political actor, but we will see it's not so strong. Because actually EU is a collection of its member states, and the member states also wants to play their role, so they have a tendency to limit the role of the EU as an actor as such. For example, France or the UK or Germany, I mean the big European states, they also want to appear themselves as actors. So they limit the capacity of EU to act as an actor. And this is why EU is extremely interesting not only as an actor per say which is a political actor but also as what's also called a normative power, which means that actually the norms, the practices, that the EU developed for itself have a relevance as regards EU activity on the international stage. Actually, there are a lot of other actors who will get inspired, or maybe even take, bit by bit, the solution that the EU has devised inside of its multi-state area. Somehow, this role as normative power as we will see is probably more important than the goal as a full fledged actor for global health governance. Toi start with, and that must be the first part of this lecture, we'll try to understand what the EU is all about. The EU as I said in introduction is a unique case in the international stage. Why? Because the EU is formerly and initially an international organization. As I said it's some sort of state. It has 28 member states today. It has evolved over time. It started with six states and now it's 28, and probably it will still grow. There are new states who want to add the European Union. It also has organs, and the other one acts on behalf of the EU. So, I would say just a few words on the main organs of EU, so that you get what its all about when the EU acts on the international stage. The first one is what is called the European Council, actually it's the first one that was formalized very recently, only since 2009 is it a full fledged organ of the European Union. And the European Council is a gathering of the head of governments or eventually head of states, for example, in France it's a French President who is a member of this European Council, they get together and they try to make policy decision. But they cannot adopt complimentary act regulation of directive as we call them. This is being done by two other very important body. One is the European Parliament. The European Parliament is a parliament composed of a bit more than 750 member of the European Parliament who are directly elected by the citizens. They are not representing the State they are representing, the European citizens. So, we will see that somehow it mimics like a national parliament. It's not a classical body of an international organization, but it is a parliament directly elected. And this European parliament, in conjunction with a third organ or institution which is called the Council of Minister, which is where the representative of the state government, not the head, those ones are in the European Council, but the Council of Minister. I know it's a bit complicated. The reason it's complicated is that because it was not created as a fine institutional design. But it was created in 1950s was a few institutions. And then growing up with more states, more competition and so on. The institutional setting has become more and more complex. And now it is still very much in the making. We do not have a clear sharing of competences between institution. For example, the European Parliament is not really the EU Parliament, because actually EU legislation is being adopted both by the Council of Minister, I was just talking about, where you have the minister of the member state and the European Parliament. They act together. And then comes the fourth institution. Maybe it's the most original one, maybe the most well-known, the European Commission. This institution is very important. It's composed of 28 members, one for each member state, but actually they do not represent that member state. They represent EU general interest, whatever that is. And the commission Is very important because it's the organ that has all the initiatives, it's a commission who propose legislative acts that would be adopted by the parliament and the council. It's a commission who implement these acts who manage the budget, for example, and so on. So the commission is probably the most visible organ of the EU, and this is why very often when people talk about European action, they refer to commission action. And the fifth organ or institution I want to talk about, very briefly, is the European Court of Justice. Very important because it makes sure that the EU law which is adopted, and w wi'll see it plays an important role, which is adopted to be implemented inside the EU on the member state is effectively implemented. The Court of Justice is pursuing state who fail to implement their obligation and is making sure that EU function and deliver what it has been created to deliver, and what is it? Well, as an international organization, the US missions. It has competences which represents missions that are being given to EU, and that has been extremely evolutive of a time. In the 1950s EU was only dealing with economic issues. Actually the purpose was not economic issues, the purpose was peace between European states. But a very smart trick was to get peace through economic integration. And over time, more and more competences have been given to the EU, so that the EU can become a full fledged, or almost full fledged, political actor. And for example, as we got health, which is a hot topic, a competence about public health has been given to the EU but only in 1993, so it's only 20 years of time that the EU has a genuine competence as regards public health. And I have to say it's a very weak competence. It's the weakest type of competence. Somehow the EU is not allowed to legislate in the field of public health. It can only support, coordinate, the action of member states. So it's a support action to the member state action. But you will see that there are other ways to be influential in the field of global health. So EU is an international organization. At the same time, because it is an integration organization, it also tries to mimic the features of a state. And basically, as I told you, EU adopts laws. As you have national laws, you have EU law, which has almost the same characteristics as national law. EU has a direct influence, direct contact with the citizens, not like other international organizations. So basically, this is this double feature that makes EU so interesting on the international stage, especially in the field of global health governance. In 1985, president of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, a Frenchman, had this famous formula. He called EU a UPO. Unidentified political object and unfortunately for us scholars since that time was still not clearly identified what the EU is. So I told you the competences of the EU in the field of health or public health is quite limited and it is important because the EU as any international organization only has competence as far as competence as our conferred to it by the member states. This is what we can the principle of conferral in article 5 of the treaty of the European Union. Clearly says that the EU cannot act if it did not receive a competence by the member states. Basically, again, you cannot act freely. It is constrained by the competence it had received. And this competence are limited. However, the founding treaty on which the EU based are revised quite often. The latest revision came into force in 2009, it's called the Lisbon Treaty, and it gives all the time new and more elaborative competence to the EU, because several Europeans, not all there is a big debate in Europe about that, have the aim of increasing the power, the consistency of the EU. So we've been talking a lot about internal competence of the EU, how much it deals with member states, and we will see it plays role on global health governance, but we also have to know that the EU has competences to act externally, the external competence of the EU. It actually, is a global idea, is the external competence mirror the internal competence. So if, there's a competence as regards to public health inside the EU, it allows EU to act on the international stage as regard public health issue. So you have this mirror effect. So now, let's see how much influential the EU is on the global set stage. Is it really an actor, a player, of global health issue? Well, actually, as I told you, it's mostly, it's soft-power, which is important and interesting. Actually, EU adopts acts which are internal acts, which are not based on the health competence, but for example, they have been adopting in 2002, a regulation which lays down general principle on food law. How you label food law, what's allowed inside food that's being sold in the EU and so on, and this plays a role as regard to global health because naturally all the producers of food worldwide, who want to access your market, they will abide by these regulation. So somehow the EU indirectly plays a very important role because largest markets in the world half a billion consumer with quite a lot of money as compared of many other areas. And so all the players who are interested to access the new market, they will accept the new regulation, not because it's compulsory, but because they need it to access the market and make money. Same type of example, in 2000, the European Union has adapted another type of of act we call a directive, but it's not very important, on, I quote, the manufacture presentation and sale of tobacco products. What are the rules to produce, commercialize and sell tobacco products, cigarettes and so on inside the EU. And naturally when you have 28 states in Europe who abide by the same rules, which have been enacted by the EU, then these 28 states have found an international regulation for tobacco marketing, for tobacco sale, and they have the legitimacy to try to impose it on other states. So this is why for example because of this internal act EU is an important player within WHO, as regard to promotion of regulation on tobacco. Also, the EU has been starting in 1998, a network for, I quote, epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the community. And then through this network they have set up standard of international corporation. They have set up good practice. And all that is being copied, used by other actors in international relation because actually there is a know-how that has been developed in Europe. So, this is what we call normative powers, a European solution are being used as a base of global health governance solution. On the other hand, the EU as a genuine actor, as a political actor, is not very convincing. It's competence are quite weak. First, because the member states, despite, declaration, political declaration of head of government and so on, which says it wants to strengthen the EU, actually they still want to be actors themselves. So they do not want the EU to act to much independently of its member states, so the EU has a limited capacity as an actor. And also you have to realize that all the states in the world, not the European states, but the other one, they may not be so happy to see the EU acting as an actor above the member states. Somehow, the European are trying to get both an action through member state, through European state, and through the EU, which is kind of playing twice when the othercountries can only play once. So the other state, are not always eager to let EU play a role as an actor. So for this reason EU is not a genuine political actor. Actually the main influence of EU, as we got global health, is through it's aid program. EU is the largest donor in the world of aid, because of the cumulative richness of its member states, and through giving aid, it set up criteria which have an impact on global health. So basically, EU is an actor, not so much as a political power, but as an economic power with maybe some humanitarian aims. So this is what I would like to conclude on is that yes, EU is a very interesting player, very relevant player as regard global health governance, but not so much as an actor, as a political actor, but much more as a normative power where the solution that it finds for setting up standard on global health between its member states are being used again on the international stage to produce global policies as regard global health issue. This is why the EU is relevant and much less as a full fledged political actor. Thank you. [MUSIC]
