The emergence of the EU in the field of vaccination
with Thibaud Deruelle
Since the Maastricht Treaty, EU institutions have been resourceful in making use of meagre coordinating competences. Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccination has taken centre stage in the role played by EU institutions: from procurement, to monitoring vaccines safety and efficacy and guidance on vaccination process.
As with many recent developments in the EU, Covid-19 seems to have propelled a more sophisticated and coordinated approach. Nevertheless, evidence shows that the role of the EU in vaccination is more incremental than the crisis-led change explanation. The reputation of EU institutions in vaccination has increased over time which explains how the EU has become a central piece of Covid-19 vaccination campaigns. This talk presents the “story” of the EU’s involvement in vaccination over the last 30 years and offers some reflections on the role of reputation-building dynamics in the emergence of the EU in this field.
The event will last 60 minutes, including a Q&A session, and will be chaired by Dr Eleanor Brooks (University of Edinburgh). It will take place on Microsoft Teams and a link to the webinar will be sent a few days before.
Dr Thibaud Deruelle is a Senior Researcher at the University of Lausanne. He works on the SYNERGIA project, financed by the SNFS, with a focus on the governance of Personalized Health. As a public policy scholar, his research interests include health policy in the EU, public health crises and bureaucratic reputation. He is also an adjunct lecturer at Université Libre de Bruxelles and, prior to this, Thibaud worked at the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium), as well as in Sciences Po Lille (France). His PhD thesis (submitted in 2020, University of Exeter, UK), and latest publications investigate the governance of communicable diseases in the EU.
EUHealthGov is a research network, funded by the University Association for Contemporary Studies (UACES), focused on the governance of health in the European Union. This event is part of its quarterly online seminar series, which provides a forum for discussion of a range of EU health governance topics, presented in roundtables, in-conversation sessions, work-in-progress seminars, practitioner perspectives and other formats.