The Treaty of Lisbon frames the European Union’s ability to act, creating a structural conflict between its strict division of competences and the comprehensive, borderless nature of the One Health (OH) approach required for effective pandemic proactiveness.

The One Health Approach and the Treaty of Lisbon’s Competences

The European Union’s implementation of its proactive pandemic strategy through the One Health (OH) approach must navigate the Treaty of Lisbon’s (ToL) division of powers, primarily relying on two categories:

1. Shared Competence (Article 4 TFEU): The OH strategy will be most robustly implemented by leveraging the EU’s power in Environmental policy. Since the OH model focuses on tackling environmental disruptors (like climate change and deforestation) that increase zoonotic risk, the EU can adopt binding, harmonizing acts in the environmental sphere. Similarly, its role in supporting the European Research Area and funding research into health threats falls under the shared competence of research, technological development, and space.
2. Supporting Competence (Article 6 TFEU): The direct impact on human health protection and improvement is constrained by this category. The EU can only support, coordinate, or supplement Member State actions. While it can coordinate responses via bodies like Health Emergency Preparedness and Response (HERA), it cannot adopt legal acts that enforce a common, harmonized EU standard for healthcare practices or general public health laws across the bloc.

The EU can therefore effectively manage the animal and environmental pillars of One Health by adopting strong legal frameworks for monitoring and eradicating zoonotic agents, but it faces a severe limitation when it comes to the human/indoor environment pillar.

The Structural Conflict: Indoor Air Quality and Fairness

The necessity of common Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) standards is undeniable for effective pandemic proactiveness. A significant majority of pathogens (like the zoonotic agents that cause pandemics) can transmit via air. To address this:

• Argument for Fairness and Implementation: For a coordinated pandemic response, all European dwellers must be afforded the same minimum level of protection against airborne threats. Common IAQ standards—covering ventilation, filtration, and monitoring in schools, offices, and public spaces—would ensure this fairness and prevent a patchwork of regulations that disadvantages citizens based on their location. Standardized requirements would also simplify implementation, allowing for the scaling and cheaper mass production of certified ventilation equipment across the single market.
• The Collusion/Incompatibility with the Treaty: The aspiration for common IAQ standards is structurally incompatible with the ToL framework. Since improving IAQ in occupied buildings is primarily a matter of protecting and improving human health, it falls squarely into the Supporting Competence category (Article 6 TFEU). The ToL explicitly excludes any harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the Member States in this domain.

This creates a structural collusion where the EU’s proactive One Health strategy—which requires tackling all interconnected health threats—is legally prevented from creating the necessary common regulatory standards (IAQ) to protect the immediate human indoor environment. The strict principle of conferral and the limited scope of the Supporting Competence for health effectively sacrifice fairness and efficiency in pandemic defense for the sake of preserving national legislative autonomy in core public health matters.