European Security European security and early warning systems: from risks to threats in the European Union's health security sector (original) (raw)
Related papers
European Security, 2017
Global health governance has increasingly become articulated and acted upon in ways that emphasise ‘health security’. This article applies a collective securitisation approach to understand how a particular governance regime has evolved at the European level, one concerned with large-scale ‘threats’ to public health and societies at large. The analysis shows that alongside elite-level securitisation moves, transnational professional networks and bureaucratic actors have also taken part both as securitising agents and audience, with outcomes reflected not only in policy change but also new EU-specific surveillance technologies, institutional structures, and information-sharing platforms. While these developments are partially interlinked with global trends, we show that the EU has gradually institutionalised its own approach to health security. This new status quo is enshrined in a legal framework and set of practices with an all-hazards approach targeting preparedness, early detection and containment of ‘serious cross-border threats to health’ of any origin – beyond infectious disease.
Security Dialogue, 2019
The securitization of health concerns within the European Union has hitherto received scant attention compared to other sectors. Drawing on the conceptual toolbox of actor-network theory, this article examines how a ‘health security assemblage’ rooted in EU governance has emerged, expanded, and stabilized. At the heart of this assemblage lies a particular knowledge regime, known as epidemic intelligence (EI): a vigilance-oriented approach of early detection and containment drawing on web-scanning tools and other informal sources. Despite its differences compared to entrenched traditions in public health, EI has, in only a decade’s time, gained central importance at the EU level. EI is simultaneously constituted by, and performative of, a particular understanding of health security problems. By ‘following the actor’, this article seeks to account for how EI has made the hunt for potential health threats so central that detection and containment, rather than prevention, have become the preferred policy options. This article draws out some of the implications of this shift.
Recent advances to address European Union Health Security from cross
of the need to strengthen the capacity of Member States to coordinate the public health response to cross border threats, whether from biological, chemical, environmental events or events which have an unknown origin. Although mechanisms have been in place for years for reporting cross border health threats from communicable diseases, this has not been the case for incidents involving chemicals and/or environmental events. A variety of collaborative EU projects have been funded over the past 10 years through the Health Programme to address gaps in knowledge on health security and to improve resilience and response to major incidents involving chemicals. This paper looks at the EU Health Programme that underpins recent research activities to address gaps in resilience, planning, responding to and recovering from a cross border chemical incident. It also looks at how the outputs from the research programme will contribute to improving public health management of transnational incidents that have the potential to overwhelm national capabilities, putting this into context with the new requirements as the Decision on serious cross border threats to health as well as highlighting areas for future development.
Disaster medicine and public health preparedness, 2016
Disease outbreaks have attracted the attention of the public health community to early warning and response systems (EWRS) for communicable diseases and other cross-border threats to health. The European Union (EU) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have published regulations in this area. Decision 1082/2013/EU brought a new approach the management of public health threats in EU member states. Decision 1082/2013/EU brought several innovations, which included establishing a Health Security Committee; preparedness and response planning; joint procurement of medical countermeasures; ad hoc monitoring for biological, chemical, and environmental threats; EWRS; and recognition of an emergency situation and interoperability between various sectors. Turkey, as an acceding country to the EU and a member of the WHO, has been improving its national public health system to meet EU legislations and WHO standards. This article first explains EWRS as defined in Decision 1082/2013/EU and Turke...
International Business Information Management Association (IBIMA), 2020
Abstract Although the civilized world finds it difficult to accept, the terrorism phenomenon has become a reality with global implications, which is hard to prevent and manage. Many historical events were characterized by the use, or threat to use, of toxic substances and pathogens, presenting evidence which clearly demonstrates that certain individuals and terrorist groups have recently conducted research on biological agents or toxins, or tried to obtain these substances. Biological agents (such as bacteria, viruses and fungi) are easier to manipulate and transport than nuclear or conventional weapons and harder to detect as the symptoms of exposure can last from several hours to several days before occurring. A terrorist possessing chemical or radiological weapons could kill hundreds or even thousands of people. With a biological arsenal, he could kill hundreds of thousands of people. In recent years, the European Union public debates and press agencies started raising questions on the implications of migration crisis, political extremism, terrorism and other forms of hybrid threats on the global supply chains. These debates demand from the European authorities countermeasures to prevent the tragedies and the loss of human life. The police, the military, border services and other security agencies of European Union countries seek to strengthen cooperation in order to address the present challenges and to deter immediate risks. At the same time, the terrorist phenomenon affects not only the internal order of a state, but also its relations with other states and, in order to be prepared, we must have a clearer understanding of the challenges facing the European Union and its security architecture. Education Excellence and Innovation Management: A 2025 Vision to Sustain Economic Development during Global Challenges - pg 15200 ISBN - 978-0-9998551-4-1
Politics and the Life Sciences, 2021
Research within security studies has struggled to determine whether infectious disease (ID) represents an existential threat to national and international security. With the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), it is imperative to reexamine the relationship between ID and global security. This article addresses the specific threat to security from COVID-19, asking, “Is COVID-19 a threat to national and international security?” To investigate this question, this article uses two theoretical approaches: human security and biosecurity. It argues that COVID-19 is a threat to global security by the ontological crisis posed to individuals through human security theory and through high politics, as evidenced by biosecurity. By viewing security threats through the lens of the individual and the state, it becomes clear that ID should be considered an international security threat. This article examines the relevant literature and applies the theoretical framework to a case study analysis focu...
Studia Europejskie - Studies in European Affairs, 2022
The European Union, the most advanced integrational arrangement of its kind today, and a model for other regional integration projects, is a relatively new actor on the international scene. It constitutes a community of values, a normative power, a cultural and political community, but, above all else, a security community. And it is to this fi nal dimension that Europe owes the longest period of peace in its modern history. However, today, faced with a new reality forged by global changes and the emergence of new threats, the theoretical construct of the security community, developed by Karl W. Deutsch, requires new insights and adjustments, including in relation to the European Union. The aim of this study is to establish whether, despite the current crisis, the European Union still meets the criteria of a security community. And considering the changes that have taken place over the years, the research problem amounts to the question of whether the concept of security itself, and thus of the security community, shouldn't be revised so as to better refl ect the present reality. In turn, the research thesis is as follows: despite all the diffi culties and more or less unprecedented events, especially those of recent times, the EU meets the criteria of a security community, wherein it presents an intermediate (halfway-house) solution between a pluralistic and an amalgamated community. In support of the presented arguments, primary and secondary sources will be used, and research methods such as a description, interpretation, comparison, and critical assessment of the literature will be applied.
Determinants and Drivers of Infectious Disease Threat Events in Europe
Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2016
Persons, services, goods, capital, and microbes are free to move across borders of the European Union (EU), which currently has 28 member states and an estimated population of 508.2 million. The ECDC is an EU agency with a mission to identify, assess, and communicate current and emerging threats to human health posed by infectious diseases. This charge is accomplished through epidemic intelligence, a process to detect, verify, analyze, assess, and investigate events that may represent a threat to public health. These activities are conducted by a team of >10 epidemiologists in the Emergency Operation Center at ECDC. The daily activity of epidemic intelligence at ECDC involves active or automated web searches from confidential and official