The New Economic Governance in Health Care: A Labour Perspective

Up to the 2008 financial crisis, the rise in the EU’s role in healthcare policy-making was mostly the result of market integration, most notably in the area of cross-border care. This largely safe-guarded member states’ competence in that field by eschewing the EU’s direct intervention in national healthcare policies to the benefit of indirect, horizontal market constraints. Since the 2008 crisis, the development of the EU’s New Economic Governance (NEG) has challenged this situation. Indeed, the NEG introduced direct intervention in social policy-making at large, including, more specifically, in healthcare. In this paper, we will look at the new economic governance in healthcare and its impact on labour politics in the sector. We will do so by mapping: 1) the nature and extent of NEG interventions in healthcare; by taking into account 2) the impact of these interventions on the space of action and power resources of trade unions and social movements active in the healthcare sector; and 3) the extent to which NEG interventions offer points of crystallisation for transnational collective action.