As the COVID-19 virus continues to spread in Europe, the Croatian Presidency of the EU Council announced in the evening of Monday 2 March that it had changed the parameters of the European Union’s crisis response mechanism (IPCR) from ‘information sharing mode’ to ‘full mode’.
This integrated mechanism is used to coordinate, at the highest political level, the EU’s response to cross-sectoral crises. Approved by the EU Council in 2013, it links the six-monthly Presidency of the EU Council, the European Commission, the External Action Service (EEAS), relevant European agencies, the Cabinet of the President of the European Council, experts from Member States and certain international organisations.
The full activation of the IPCR mechanism “allows a greater focus on identifying important gaps in all sectors and developing concrete responses in Presidency-led roundtables”, the EU Council noted in a statement.
According to a tally published on Tuesday 3 March by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the COVID-19 coronavirus has so far caused 2,495 infections and 55 deaths in the EU. The day before, it had reassessed the risk of transmission of the virus in the EU as “moderate to high” (see EUROPE 12437/1).
The agenda of the extraordinary Health Council meeting
The Croatian Presidency also circulated a document intended to outline the extraordinary meeting of European health ministers on Friday 6 March. It proposes that the Twenty-Seven focus on three aspects: – the evaluation of EU mechanisms and the relevance of additional mechanisms; – the effectiveness of the measures in place at national level and the plans of Member States, in particular their plans to move from predominantly preventive and preparatory measures to treatment measures; – and the measures to be taken by the European Commission.
See the agenda of the extraordinary Health Council: http://bit.ly/2IbSQFo
Work continues by the Member States. In Poland, for example, a country so far spared by the virus, the national parliament has adopted a series of exceptional legal means (which have yet to be approved by the Senate and the Head of State). These measures allow the government, in the event of an epidemic, to limit certain civil rights and freedoms, to impose exceptional burdens on the public administration, to circumvent the public order code, to intervene directly in the medicines market and to resort to the army.
In search of a medical treatment
On Tuesday, the European Commission and the pharmaceutical industry, meeting within the public-private partnership ‘Innovative Medicines Initiative’ (IMI), announced their intention to launch a fast-track procedure for research projects related to the treatment and diagnosis of COVID-19. The European Union will mobilise up to €45 million from Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation framework programme. A commitment of a similar magnitude is expected from the pharmaceutical industry.
In the United States, Vice-President Mike Pence, who is coordinating the fight against the epidemic, announced that treatment could be available “by the summer or early fall”. The first clinical trials for a vaccine could take place “within the next 6 weeks”, he added, but no vaccine will be available before the end of the year at the earliest.
The G7 ‘Finance’ is ready to use all relevant means
Following a videoconference, G7 Finance Ministers and central bankers expressed their commitment to “use all appropriate instruments [...], including fiscal measures” to support economic growth and price stability (see other news).
The Governing Council of the European Central Bank will discuss on Thursday 12 March possible “targeted” responses to the downside risks to the economy posed by the spread of the new coronavirus.
Businesses, particularly in the transport sector, are making no secret of their concerns about the impact of the epidemic on their activities. Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith said he expects the health crisis to accelerate the wave of consolidation in the airline industry.
Meeting in the Airlines for Europe lobby, several European airlines have called for a relaxation of airport regulations under which airlines can lose lucrative landing and take-off slots if they cancel flights for an extended period of time. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean with Agathe Cherki and Mathieu Bion)