Divergent resources and convergent transposition strategies–the East–West cleavage and its implications for transposition

This article examines the transposition of the Cross-Border Patients’ Rights Directive 2011/24/EU (the Directive) in two systems of the European Union, Austria and Bulgaria. The specific purpose of the paper is to examine and explicate the transposition output in the two cases, from a resource perspective. In doing so, the piece studies the implications of the socio-economic cleavage in the Union on the nature and contents of transposition texts in rich and poor systems. Health care sector resources’ impact on transposition is examined in detail. This factor is derived from the provisions of the Directive and identified as critical for the interpretation of the Directive in the context of the examined systems. The study’s findings establish a convergence between the two systems. In spite of divergent sector resources, transposition strategies in both cases followed a protectionist logic and served to restrict unlimited patient mobility, though to a different extent.