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Today, Europe is living a new decisive time as it has been in its past after World War II, in search of unity in diversity in the name of a peace project to safeguard future. If, on the one hand, Europe expresses aspirations for profound changes in its external environment, in the domestic context, it ends up colliding with aspects linked to sovereignty and human rights; on the other hand, in European foreign policy, the model reveals the search to legitimize its action. Precisely, the objective and the motivation of this study seek, through the qualitative methodology in Political Science, to analyse and understand the current context of the European Union in the international system. In fact, it is identified that this new hierarchy of powers, in the reaffirmation of the Westphalian system, where economic power comes, is bound to consolidate the democratic development between the old and new times of international relations in the destiny of Europe. From the results obtained during the analysis, in order to face again the unpredictability of the world scenario, it is a reality that Europe must promote the re-encounter of an alternative role, in other words, to assume its initial project of European edification in the name of equality of circumstances and rights of its affirmation in the global arena.

It is common today, even in the European media, to treat the current crisis of the European Union almost exclusively as an economic crisis. The present article pretends to show that such a focus is not only wrong but is indeed dangerous for the future development of the European Union as a whole. The article will argue that the present economic crisis simply aggravated – and a lot – a crisis of legitimacy through which the European Union has been passing for some time. Showing that the anti-European tendencies which are spreading throughout the countries of the continent threaten the very future of the European project, the article will make suggestion on reforms for the future development of the EU, alerting to the necessity to finally elaborate once again a coherent argument for the continuation of the European integration process which puts the European population at the heart of the political process instead of just austerity.

O presente artigo tem como objetivo mostrar como a União Européia, por meio da atividade da Corte de Justiça das Comunidades Européias, vem restringindo a proteção à saúde em nome da efetivação do Mercado Comum Europeu, base da construção européia. Demonstra-se este fato pela análise das mais significativas decisões relativas, direta e indiretamente, à saúde emanadas por essa Corte. Constata-se o esvaziamento da noção de proteção à saúde por meio, principalmente, da interpretação estrita dos artigos(1) do Tratado das Comunidades Européias, que viabilizam a possibilidade de existência de medidas nacionais que contradigam o Direito Comunitário em nome da proteção de certos valores, aqui a saúde. Nesse contexto, a saúde enquanto medida derrogatória, o monopólio farmacêutico, o princípio de precaução encontram-se fortemente enfraquecidos. Esse fato revela o papel que a Corte européia vem assumindo por meio da integração negativa, dentro do atual contexto decisional cada vez mais complexo da União, e a incapacidade desta para traçar objetivos comuns em áreas controvertidas, mas de suma importância, como a da saúde. ; This article aims to highlight how the European Union, throughout the activity of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, has been restricting the protection of health on the behalf of the European Common Market effectiveness. This is shown by the analysis of the most significant decisions related to health. It is noted that the notion of protection of health has been loosing its sense by the strict interpretation of the articles of the European Community Treaty, which actually allows the existence of measures in opposition to the European Law, in the name of the protection of certain major tenets, like the protection of health. In this context, the derogatory measures, pharmaceutical monopoly and principle of precaution find themselves almost weakling. This fact reveals the role played by the European Court through the negative integration process, inside the complex decisional context of the European Union, and its incapacity of establishing common goals in controversial but highly important domains like health.

The Treaty of Lisbon, in line with the failed Constitutional Treaty and in the sequence of several initiatives which had taken place, came to provide for the mechanism of permanent structured cooperation. The goal of this mechanism is to enable the arising of a vanguard of Member States, eventually ready to form the embryo of a future European Union's exclusive defence system. Although permanent structured cooperation represents a step towards the application of the "community method" to security and defence of the European Union, it doesn't still fit in that pattern. Only future can tell, if permanent structured cooperation is likely to provide the European Union with a security and defence policy based on the "community method".