Cross-border access to healthcare and entitlement to the complementary "Vanbraekel-Reimbursement"

In June 2010, in European Commission v Spain, the Court of Justice concluded that tourists, business people, students and other EU citizens who travel to other Member States, for purposes other than medical treatment, where the rules for insurance cover are less advantageous than at home are not entitled to be reimbursed for the amount covering the difference. The judgment is hard to compare with previous case law, especially since the EU legislator, as the recently adopted Patients' Rights Directive demonstrates, has been willing to recognise a right to such complementary reimbursement. In the field of cross-border access to healthcare, the traditional picture is that in which the Member States seek to curtail the interpretative wings of an, in their view often too expansionist Court. Here, however; we have the unique and reverse situation, in which the Member States and the EU legislature prove to be more "Patient-friendly" than an unnecessarily conservative Court.