The EU’s securitization of global health: was COVID-19 a Zeitenwende?

Almost thirty years since the Maastricht Treaty provided an explicit legal basis in the health realm, the EU declared global health an "essential pillar" of its external action. Yet, it is still seeking to "come of age" as a global health actor. This might be facilitated by the securitisation of health, which was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the crisis was often framed as a war against a common enemy. However, the literature is yet to establish whether these analogies were systematically embraced by EU supranational policy entrepreneurs, signalling a Zeitenwende – or "epochal tectonic shift" – in the EU’s health-related discourse. Through an analysis of key strategic documents and public statements, this article determines the extent to which COVID-19 drove the securitisation of global health in the EU. Relatedly, it discusses whether this framing might be conducive to an enhanced EU actorness on the world stage. The article concludes that, after COVID-19 struck, some EU institutions did intensify their "health security" rhetoric in pursuit of an expanded role. While this shift was neither widespread nor enduring enough to warrant the "epochal" label, it nonetheless risks leading the EU towards a narrower, short-sighted conception of its global health actorness.