Diplomacy & Crisis News

U.S. Ambassador Richard L. Buangan talks to The Diplomat about the future of the partnership.

Amid intensifying China-U.S. rivalry and global trade volatility, middle powers such as South Korea and Brazil are diversifying their supply chains through minilateralism.

The biggest takeaway: there were no groundbreaking changes, whether in foreign policy or domestic politics.

On 24 February 2026 3-4.30pm GMT, EUHealthGov hosted the launch of a Symposium entitled ‘Public Health, Markets, and Law’ published recently in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics of the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics, and guest-edited by Dr Mina Hosseini and Professor Imelda Maher (both UCD).

The role of markets in public health, and the frameworks provided by law to regulate and support these, generate wide-ranging questions. Acknowledging the existence of markets in public health, and the diverse aspects of law which come into play, means that discussions which respond to these can be enriched.

The guest-editors highlighted the contextual relevance of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as Dr Mina Hosseini’s COMPHACRISIS project in shaping discussions and analysis which has culminated in this Symposium. Professor Imelda Maher highlighted three themes uniting the Symposium papers: time, the State, and interest, particularly the public interest.

The webinar organised the papers into three thematic sections: pharmaceuticals and access to medicines, pandemic responses, and competition policy.

Pharmaceuticals and access to medicines

Professor Susi Geiger (UCD) examined the temporalities of current pharmaceutical markets with a view to devising a set of principles and practices to break with these and outline a social contract for a new (temporal) political economy of pharmaceuticals.

Dr Pramiti Parwani (Warwick) engaged with the question of what institutional dynamics catalyze European external regulatory impact on pharmaceutical governance in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), focusing on the technocratic outreach beyond European borders of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Patent Office (EPO).

Dr Katrina Perehudoff (Amsterdam) explored the specific needs of people with disabilities in LMICs, focusing on the EU’s extraterritorial legal obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Pandemic responses

Professor Aisling McMahon (Maynooth) used the role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in global access to vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic to argue that key aspects of the current institutional system align towards delivering individualistic state/ regional/ rightsholders priorities in the use of IPRs over pandemic health technologies.

Dr Mina Hosseini (UCD) reviewed the European Commission’s centralized procurement approach for vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic to identify critical challenges and propose a novel Fairness, Accountability, Competition Law, Ethics of Innovation, and Resilience (FACER) framework as a tool for EU policymakers to enhance vaccine strategy and equity in future health crises.

Competition policy

Dr Carmen de Vivero de Porras and Dr Enrique Sanjuán y Muñoz (Málaga and Málaga) examined the Spanish Competition Authority’s judgment in sanctioning the North American pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp & Dohme for abuse of a dominant position in order to delimit the difference between the legitimate and abusive exercise of the right to effective judicial protection.

Dr Łukasz Grzejdziak (Strathclyde) highlighted the emergence of a distinct, sector-specific notion of economic activity (“undertaking”) in the context of services delivered within public healthcare systems which risks generating significant distortions of competition in mixed public/private healthcare systems such as Poland.

Dr Mary Guy (TCD) juxtaposed the CJEU’s judgment in Casa Regina Apostolorum with the treatment of public hospitals in Commission decisions regarding state aid and services of general economic interest (SGEI), finding not only that two levels of analysis can emerge depending on Member State input, but also that the requirement for cross-border effects on trade may also prove as decisive as an economic activity in deciding whether EU (as distinct from national) competition law applies.

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You can find the full webinar recording here.

The full Symposium is available here.

The post Summary: “Public Health, Markets, and Law” – A Symposium in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

China’s push to attract ethnic Chinese talent from the U.S., in particular, is up against hard limits – but anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States may work to Beijing’s advantage.

Indonesians cannot afford to buy U.S. oil and gas because they can’t afford to keep paying for their own destruction.

Le 4 novembre 2025, Larissa, mère de sept enfants, était assassinée par son mari avec qui elle était en instance de divorce. Le féminicide a profondément choqué à Nice et pour la première fois, les femmes de la communauté tchétchène, à laquelle Larissa appartenait, ont publiquement pris la parole pour dénoncer des coutumes patriarcales qui leur imposent le silence. Elena Volochine s'est rendu à Nice pour France 24. Dans cette édition, reportage de nos correspondants en Inde sur une pratique qui persiste malgré les interdictions : les meurtres de femmes accusées de sorcellerie. Et puis, au Sénégal, l'organisation Black Girls Surf lutte contre la déscolarisation avec un programme qui mêle cours de surf et reprise des cours.

Où va la diplomatie française ? Et qui parle en son nom ? Lorsque la réaction de M. Emmanuel Macron à l'enlèvement de son homologue vénézuélien par des militaires américains fut à ce point enthousiaste que M. Donald Trump la relaya aussitôt sur son compte, le président français en parut (…) / France, Diplomatie, Infoguerre, Désinformation

A new film attempts to rewrite one of the most infamous murders of Taiwan’s martial era in a way that aligns with China’s interests. 

Instead of a thrust on key areas such as women and children’s health, the government has chosen to expand tertiary healthcare.

Merz’s trip should not be viewed as a strategic pivot, but as a focused attempt to rebalance an increasingly uneven economic relationship.

Ultimately, the dilemma facing the Australian government about these women and their children stems from an uncomfortable truth: citizenship is a concept that sits above good and bad behavior.

Regional banks helped fund Japan’s post-war economy. But can they survive a dwindling population?

The reality depends on how the site fits into wider influence operations, the consolidation of diplomatic outposts, and renewed U.K. engagement with China amid shifting global alliances.

Kazakhstan finds itself at the intersection of two structural trends: the militarization of the global economy and the technological rivalry between the United States and China.

Les "données administratives" telles que le "nom, prénom, numéro de téléphone et/ou adresse postale" de quelque 15 millions de Français ont fait l'objet d'une fuite massive, a annoncé vendredi le ministère de la Santé. Cette cyberattaque remonte à fin 2025. Une enquête a depuis été ouverte, a indiqué le parquet de Paris.

Vendredi, le parquet général a requis 20 ans de réclusion contre Brahim Chnina et Abdelhakim Sefrioui, auteurs d'une campagne de haine lancée avant l'assassinat de Samuel Paty, le 16 octobre 2020. Il a également requis 16 ans de réclusion pour "complicité d'assassinat" à l'encontre de deux proches du jihadiste tchétchène.

When a mob of Hindutva goons descended on a Muslim shopkeeper, a young gym owner stepped forward to defend him.

ÄNDERUNGSANTRÄGE 9 - 89 - Entwurf einer Stellungnahme Einrichtung von „Horizont Europa“, dem Rahmenprogramm für Forschung und Innovation, für den Zeitraum 2028-2034 sowie dessen Regeln für die Beteiligung und die Verbreitung der Ergebnisse und Aufhebung der Verordnung (EU) 2021/695
Ausschuss für Sicherheit und Verteidigung
Costas Mavrides

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP

BERICHT über den Abbau von Hindernissen für den Binnenmarkt für Verteidigung
Ausschuss für Sicherheit und Verteidigung
Tobias Cremer

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP