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One of the issues which has emerged during the COVID crisis concerns export restrictions on basic supplies – medical equipment – imposed by some EU Member States. Apart from fracturing the internal market, such practices may lead to stockpiling and wastage due to non-priority use of medical equipment. Crucial supplies may fail to reach the people who need them most. Export restrictions may be justified by Member States based on public health protection, subject to the proportionality test. This article claims that the traditional model of justifying market restrictions is not well-equipped to address public health emergencies. It proposes interpreting the notion of public health taking into consideration the public health situations in different EU Member States in cases of emergency, not limited to the situation in the Member State imposing the export restriction. This approach is based on individual and national solidarity within the Union. Finally, a refined application of the proportionality test, to be applied when assessing national export restrictions within the described context, is proposed.

The right to healthcare is a socio-economic right. It is positive in the sense that governments need to provide resources and set the priorities for individuals to be able to exercise it. The provision of healthcare within complex political entities such as the European Union (EU) and Canada is divided between different actors, namely the federal government and provinces in the case of Canada, and European institutions and Member States in the case of the EU. The paper analyses the EU and Canadian legal frameworks and attempts to determine the right balance of power between the centre and the constituent parts in order to facilitate the exercise of the right to healthcare.

Free movement of persons is one of the fundamental freedoms of European integration. It is protected by EU primary law, especially by the TFEU and its provisions on citizen's rights and free movement of workers within the Union. The described freedom is not absolute, however. One of the crucial limitations consists of the economically nonactive EU citizens and their family members having to obtain comprehensive sickness insurance cover in the host Member States in order to enjoy the right of residence for more than three months in those states.The aim of the paper is to analyse the legal framework of the UK, Ireland, Slovenia and Croatia and their implementation of the EU Residence Directive's comprehensive sickness insurance condition for the right of residence in EU Member States and determine whether certain changes to the Residence Directive are needed in order to obtain a clearer regulation of EU citizens' rights in cross-border situations. The analysis has shown that the national autonomy may result in various interpretations, depending on the type of the social security health system the country in question employs. Different interpretations have highlighted the need for a clearer EU-level regulation, to increase clarity and legal certainty for migrants.

The European Court of Justice has, in just over a decade, developed considerable jurisprudence on persons accessing health care in EU Member States in which they are not socially protected. The approach is centred on the individual patient's entitlement to receive the best possible health care to alleviate his/her medical problem anywhere in the EU. However, this has created serious problems regarding the balance of basic principles governing the English NHS, and the free movement principle of EU law.The aim of the paper is to analyse the English case-law on entitlement to socially-covered health care and see if suggestions for a more balanced EU regime on patient mobility can be made. The analysis of the English case-law demonstrates that decisions on entitlement to health care are focused on limited resources and making priority decisions at the local level. The investigation of the Court of Justice jurisprudence shows that the Court gives priority to individual patients' needs and entitlements, while disregarding limited resources and priority decisions. On the basis of these findings, the paper proposes a more balanced course of action by the Court of Justice, taking into account the logic of the English courts.

Competition and state aid rules are not applicable to compulsory health insurance in the Republic of Croatia, since the latter does not constitute an economic activity as defined by EU law. On the other hand, complementary health insurance, as established in Croatia, constitutes an economic activity, due to the existence of real competition between undertakings. The illustrated situation with competition in complementary health insurance market allows for the statement that special rules applicable to Croatian Health Insurance Fund (HZZO) provide the latter with a privileged position when compared to its private competitors to whom these rules do not apply. Moreover, this privileged position is strengthened by the fact that HZZO, as a legal monopolist within the sphere of compulsory health insurance, utilizes respective infrastructure in the field of complementary health insurance, which enables it to reduce expenses to the detriment of its private competitors lacking such a privilege. A solution for the described situation could be for the state to establish a separate entity to provide complementary health insurance. This entity would have to provide open enrolment and community rating, regardless of age, sex or health of the insured persons. In order to prevent private competitors from jeopardising the exercise of service of general economic interest by taking over only the insured persons with a more favourable risk profile, a risk equalisation scheme would have to be set up. This would result in a transfer of funds from insurers with a favourable risk profile to those with an unfavourable risk profile on basis of objective and clear criteria, thereby making it possible for the latter to provide service to the higher-risk insured persons like the elderly and the ones with chronic illnesses. In this way, a balance between the necessity to provide a service of general economic interest to all insured persons, including those with a higher risk, and competition on the EU internal market, would be struck.