The COVID-19 pandemic
challenged the European Union’s border law, testing its fundamental principle
of free movement against the imperative of public health protection. This
article examines how the EU managed tensions between these values from March
2020 to June 2023, highlighting the evolving dynamics of internal and external
border controls. The analysis identifies four key themes which remain an EU law
legacy from the pandemic: reinterpretation of the rule/exception structure to
integrate health concerns; deployment of selective mobility across geopolitical
and individual dimensions; strategic use of soft law instruments to guide
national measures; and reliance on technocratic governance to steer coordinated
responses. By exploring these themes across distinct pandemic phases, the
article demonstrates how EU COVID-19 border law exemplifies the integration of
public health as a value and underscores the need to reconcile this with the
EU’s legal framework on free movement.