The Role of the European Union in Global Health

The initiatives to create a European Health Union entail an important political opportunity to strengthen the global health role of the EU. The EU’s internal legal and political capacity for health immediately interacts with its goals in global health. A stronger global health role of the EU will bring geopolitical advantages, but will also benefit the global community as well as EU Member States internally. It affects many areas of EU policy including development policies, foreign policies and setting safety standards that impact global health, in areas such as food safety, chemical safety, environmental policies and more recently digital health.