The European Union is not yet prepared for the smooth management of serious cross-border threats to health, says the European Court of Auditors in a special report published on Thursday 8 December (Special Report No. 28/2016). The ECA says that while tools exist, they are implemented far too slowly.
The 80-page document looks at the European Union’s levels of preparedness rather than actual management of crises in the past (H1N1 in 2009 or e.coli in 2011). The European Court of Auditors says that in recent years, the EU has developed good tools for dealing with food crises, such as Decision 1082/2013/EU on serous cross-border threats to health or the joint market agreement. However, it found serious weaknesses in implementation.
The Health Security Committee (HSC), boosted by a decision taken in 2013, still faces serious strategic and operational challenges. Of the four working groups set up in this domain, only two (the communicants’ network and the working group on preparation) have been properly set up, since the other two have not yet started work. The high incidence of big epidemics in recent years and the lack of strategic planning explain to a certain extent why meetings of the Food Security Committee often react in a technical manner rather than strategically plan, explains the report. The ECA regrets lack of progress on joint issuing of tenders for acquiring medical counter-measures, although backed by all member states bar Poland. The ECA criticises the lack of reaction from member states, particularly regarding the purchase of pandemic flu vaccines (only five member states have so far carried out a needs assessment). An emergency mechanism for dealing with urgent need for medical treatment would be less complex, more flexible and faster to implement than the agreement on joint commissioning, explains the report. The ECB notes gaps in the early warning and reaction system. which is obsolete technologically and has never been tested for chemical or environmental threats.
In this regard the report makes a raft of recommendations for European decision-makers. It demands that the health committee be granted a strategic roadmap and for the joint issuing of contracts to be speeded up and for improvements to be made to the early warning and reaction system. It suggests making the outcome of co-financed action longer-lasting in terms of protection against threats to health and for improvements to be made to the methods for measuring performance. It wants more structured coordination to be set up among the various European Commission services whose work relates to health and safety. We hope that the report will send a positive signal to encourage member states to boost their cooperation, as our desire is for when there is another crisis, everyone knows what to do and time is not wasted talking about it, commented the man responsible for the report at the ECA, Janusz Wojciechowski. The report can be found at: http://www.eca.europa.eu/fr/Pages/DocItem.aspx?did=40126. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)