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Vol. 44 (2024)
General Articles

Exploring Asymmetries of Market Integration at the Intersection of Health Protection and Mobility During the Pandemic and the Effects on the Rights of Individuals in the EU

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  • Patrycja Dąbrowska-Kłosińska
Patrycja Dąbrowska-Kłosińska
Kozminski University

Published 2025-11-14

Keywords

  • EU health law,
  • EU individual rights,
  • EU internal market,
  • free movement of persons,
  • structural asymmetries

How to Cite

Exploring Asymmetries of Market Integration at the Intersection of Health Protection and Mobility During the Pandemic and the Effects on the Rights of Individuals in the EU. (2025). Polish Yearbook of International Law, 44, 253-285. https://doi.org/10.24425/PYIL.2025.156722

Abstract

Drawing on the theoretical approach of F.W. Scharpf (2012), as critically 
contested by M. van den Brink, M. Dawson and J. Zglinski (2023), the article un
earths the implications for individual rights at the intersection of health protection and 
freedom of movement of persons in the European Union’s integrated market during 
the pandemic. The findings are based on empirical analysis of the CJEU case law 
and European secondary laws adopted in the context of counteracting the COVID-19 
pandemic (2020–2022). The text shows that the Court of Justice of the European Union 
(CJEU) has adopted a variety of approaches in its standard of review towards national 
regulatory measures (either strict or deferential review), while many secondary laws 
were adopted at the EU level to pursue market correction policies (e.g. crisis prepared
ness or protection of health data). Thus the research confirms that the current internal 
market dynamics in the areas of health and movement of persons is indeed too complex 
to be described solely by the original asymmetry thesis. Yet, it is also argued that less 
de-regulation at the national level (negative integration) and more re-regulation at the EU level (positive integration) does not necessarily lead to better protection and 
enforcement of Treaty-based and fundamental rights of individuals in the EU.

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