EU health policy matters to member states. That means influence over EU health policy should also matter to member states and regions. However, it is difficult to organise the complex relationships between devolved governments, member states and the European Union in the complex field of health policy.
The UK is not alone in this; in different ways France, Germany, and Spain are also grappling with these problems. This report, based on extensive interviews with senior policy-makers in the four member states, analyses the political and administrative organisation of their EU engagement from three perspectives: coordination of approach, type of activity, and formal and informal influencing. It looks at the consequences for each member state of its given policy and the lessons that the UK can learn from these, in the context of its own political devolution.
Becoming European is the latest report in the Nuffield Trust devolution project. It will be of interest to policy-makers, researchers and students in the fields of health policy, EU policy and UK devolution.