Pursuing an overarching commodification script through country-specific interventions? The EU’s New Economic Governance prescriptions in healthcare (2009–2019)

Abstract

After the 2008 financial crisis, the European Union (EU) introduced a New Economic Governance (NEG) regime, which enabled much more coercive interventions of EU executives in social policy areas hitherto shielded from them. This study assesses the policy orientation of their NEG prescriptions in healthcare for Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Romania from 2009 to 2019 and the potential for countervailing actions of labour movements. Acknowledging organized labour’s contribution to the making of decommodified healthcare systems after 1945, we ask if the NEG prescriptions were informed by an overarching healthcare commodification script, as this is a necessary (albeit not sufficient) condition for transnational counter-movements. Our analysis reveals that the country-specific NEG prescriptions of the European Commission and the Council followed an overarching commodification script, which especially targeted the countries that lagged behind in health service commodification. NEG thus represents a case of reversed differentiated integration, which provided both opportunities and challenges to transnational counter-movements.