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COVID-19 has demonstrated the fragility of EU free movement rules when we are faced with an unknown virus of such magnitude and strength that it threatens our lives, health systems, economies and society. The aim of this text is to show the dynamics between the threat of COVID-19 and the rules imposed as a response to the pandemic, which have impacted the functioning of the EU internal market and the Schengen area. The text will concentrate on the application of the precautionary principle and public health restrictions, caused by COVID-19, to free movement of persons in the EU. The analysis will lead to three conclusions. First, it will be shown that the decisions to apply free movement restrictions and the logic followed in the EU COVID-19-related documents can be viewed as a triumph of the precautionary principle. Second, it will be argued that implementing the precautionary principle has a transformative effect on the application of the principle of proportionality in EU law. Finally, it will be shown that COVID-19 has emphasised and increased the difference between the conditions for the applicability of public health restrictions when compared to restrictions based on public policy and public security grounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 is a zoonosis, a disease transmitted by an animal to humans. The diffusion of the outbreak is therefore born of an unsuitable, insufficient, excessively permissive food safety system. Hence, the regulation of food safety plays a central role in the protection of health and has done so on a global scale. The overall regulation of food safety therefore requires an increase in the level of health protection, even at the expense of commercial prerogatives. For these purposes, four reform measures are suggested: to transform the Codex Alimentarius Commission into an organisation that adopts international standards with the sole purpose of protecting health; to apply the precautionary principle on a global scale and in international organisations; to strengthen the mandatory labelling tool; and to create a worldwide system of controls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the precautionary principle and to protect the right to life under Article L. 521-2 of the French Code of Administrative Justice, the Administrative Tribunal of Guadeloupe (Judge for interim relief) ordered the Regional Health Agency of Guadeloupe and the University Hospital Centre of Guadeloupe to procure 200,000 COVID-19 screening tests corresponding to half of the population of Guadeloupe and to buy the doses necessary for the treatment of the COVID-19 epidemic with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for 20,000 patients. On appeal, the French Council of State, by disregarding the application of the precautionary principle and with controversial reasoning concerning the relationship between discretionary power and scientific uncertainty, annulled the decision of the Administrative Tribunal of Guadeloupe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]