The role of the state in financing and regulating primary care in Europe: a taxonomy

•24 WHO European Region countries primary care systems have been analysed under common criteria•Assessing the type of actor (state, societal, private) involved in and level of fragmentation of health functions is equivalent to quantifying their degree of decentralisation•We found four clusters with different degrees of decentralisation of health system governance and primary care financing and regulation•Clusters with less private involvement in and/or less fragmentation of PC financing and regulation had gatekeeping implemented