The EU as Active and Passive Political Determinant of Forced Migrants' Health: Insights from the Case of Germany.

Abstract

This article examines the EU's function as political determinant of health (PDoH) in national-level regulation of forced migrants' access to health(care), with a focus on Germany. It sheds light on the role the EU has come to play - and been assigned - in national policymaking under the impression of different crises. By applying the concepts of claims and frames/framing, the article examines in a document analysis how and to what end(s) 'the EU' as a polity as well as specific EU legislation were invoked in German draft legislation. Increasing Europeanisation in the areas of health and migration has not only forced national legislators to adapt legislation in order to abide to EU rules and standards, but has also prompted governmental actors to shift responsibility for policy reforms to the EU - even in cases where not all of these reforms were legally required. The EU's role as PDoH must be considered from two angles: the Union's active potential to determine public health through its policies and laws; and its passive, to some extent involuntary, potential to do so through the strategic invoking of EU norms, rules and (in)competences by actors across the EU multilevel-governance system.