European Commissioners Stella Kyriakides (Health) and Janez Lenarčič (Civil Protection) spared no effort, on Tuesday 21 April, to convince MEPs on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee of their total investment in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
The Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, also announced the launch of two new joint procurements, one for personal protective equipment and the other for therapeutics, at France's request. Janez Lenarčič, for his part, announced the first deliveries of medical equipment (ventilators and masks) from the strategic RescEU stockpile of medical equipment "in the next few days".
While acknowledging initial delays in the European response, he stressed that the situation had "gradually improved" in terms of preparation, solidarity between Member States and coordination. He called on MEPs to properly fund the EU's Civil Protection Mechanism in the next budget for 2021-2027 so that it is better equipped for the future.
The priority: managing the emergency
Stella Kyriakides said that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), through a surveillance exercise, and the Commission, through an initial joint purchase of personal protective equipment, has taken action since the end of January, when the virus had not yet spread widely across Europe. Acknowledging that coordination could have been better, she repeatedly stressed that this was an "unprecedented health crisis".
For her, at this stage, it is appropriate to look "forward". "We're in the middle of a crisis. We will have the opportunity to look back, we will have the Conference on the Future of Europe. But here, my daily goal is to do everything I can to save lives, because behind the numbers are people", she said.
The day before, she had urged health ministers to support the World Health Organisation (WHO), indicating that an assessment would come in due course to respond to US accusations of the UN organisation's bias regarding China.
Concrete requests from MEPs
This sense of urgency allowed the Commissioner to sweep aside several reform ideas put forward by MEPs, such as Jytte Guteland's one (S&D, Sweden) to provide for more European powers in the event of a health threat, Michèle Rivasi's (Greens/EFA, France) idea to set up "stress tests" of each Member State's health strategies as well as the one of Jutta Paulus' (Greens/EFA, Germany) of a pan-European database on pharmaceuticals or the number of beds available. The Conference on the Future of Europe will, she said, "provide an opportunity to think about more Europe in the health field".
On the need to harmonise methods for identifying cases highlighted in the parliamentary resolution adopted last week, Commissioner Kyriakides said the ECDC was working on a case definition, stressing that Member States each had their own specificities.
The only deadline that Stella Kyriakides ventured on confirming is the end of the year, when the Commission will present its pharmaceutical strategy. This will not aim to make us 100% independent from the rest of the world, but will focus on the need to "repatriate production to increase the production of medicines and pharmaceutical ingredients in Europe".
In conclusion, the Commissioner reiterated that SARS-CoV-2 (or COVID-19) will not be going away and that we will have to live with the virus until a treatment or vaccine is found.
Closing the funding gap for a vaccine. "Ultimately, vaccines and remedies are the solution, in a spirit of global solidarity", she said. Referring to the World Donors' Conference, organised for 4 May by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen with all private and public stakeholders (see EUROPE 12467/8), she called for MEPs' support "to get the message across". To MEP Jutta Paulus, she said, "it seems obvious to me that the safety of the vaccine must be guaranteed".
Silvia Modig (GUE/NGL, Finland) was the only one to have stressed that "intellectual property rights should not be allowed to hinder the roll-out of a new vaccine" and that the pharmaceutical industry should not "take advantage of the pandemic to the detriment of health to make profits on the backs of patients".
Commissioner Lenarčič stressed the importance of the Civil Protection Mechanism, "a tool which, when fully used, can achieve solidarity on the ground". While Italy has been late in receiving aid, Member States are now providing assistance, as Croatia recently did (see other news).
The creation of the RescEU medical equipment stockpile in record time was born out of a lack of initial response, he said, delighted that the Parliament had already voted an amending budget of €300 million for 2020 (see EUROPE 12469/7).
Replenishing the budget of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. Responding to Jytte Guteland, who asked whether there would be a strengthening of the multiannual budget of the Civil Protection Mechanism and RescEU, the Commissioner said that the figures would inevitably have to be revised, as the proposed civil protection budget for the next MFF was pre-crisis. For example, for RescEU, an additional €370 million is needed to store medical equipment. As for the repatriation of European citizens (48,000), the Commission expects EU co-financing of the flights to be 10 times higher than the €10 million initially planned for 2020.
"I invite you and the European Parliament as a whole to reflect on this Civil Protection Mechanism which we could further strengthen", said the Commissioner. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean and Aminata Niang)