The Covid-19 pandemic is an opportunity to rethink European health policy, and this has been well understood by pressure groups in Brussels. On Tuesday 26 May, 17 NGOs issued a joint statement under the EU4Health banner calling on the European institutions to undertake far-reaching reforms.
“Today, Europe is still too weak on health policy. The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated and exposed the vulnerability of our health care systems, our societies and our health”, says the joint statement. The co-signatories, which include the European Patients' Forum (EPF) and the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), invite other organisations to join them.
The requests focus on three areas: boost funding and resources for health in the EU, strengthen EU action on health within the current mandate, and rethink the EU's competences and vision for the future of health care.
In the short term, the co-signatories call in particular for enabling the European health agencies to effectively address common health problems by reinforcing the role of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and extending the resources and mandate of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) to tackle communicable and non-communicable diseases.
As the European Commission is due to present its draft European budget and recovery plan on Wednesday 27 May, which is expected to include a new European public health programme, the co-signatories also call for increased resources for health (see EUROPE 12492/2). In particular, they call for the re-establishment of an independent health programme, an increase in the share of the EU budget devoted to health and a revision of EU research priorities.
The statement can be found at: https://bit.ly/3elOJVq (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)