The State of the Union address delivered by the President of the European Commission on Wednesday 16 September devoted a large part of her speech to health policies. On this occasion, Ursula von der Leyen announced her intention to create a European Agency for Advanced Biomedical Research and Development, modelled on the American BARDA.
In addition to this proposal, Ms von der Leyen reaffirmed her intention to strengthen the role and powers of the European Medicines Agency and the Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in 2021.
“For me, it is obvious: we need to build a stronger European Health Union. To begin to turn this idea into reality, we must now learn the first lessons from the health crisis”, she said, as the grim toll of the Covid-19 pandemic inexorably approaches 1 million deaths.
She expressed her wish to discuss competences in the field of health at the Conference on the Future of Europe. She also expressed support for a broader discussion, extending to major international bodies such as the World Health Organization (WHO). “Europe should take the lead in this movement”, she said.
Creating a European BARDA
The President’s main idea is to develop a European BARDA, as called for at the beginning of the crisis by Sanofi boss Paul Hudson. Such an agency already exists in the United States – the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) – to work with industry to obtain and develop treatment for pandemic influenza and emerging diseases. BARDA often commits to buying vaccines even if the pandemic fades, as was the case for Zika and Ebola.
“This new agency will support our capacity and preparedness to deal with cross-border threats and emergencies, whether natural or intentional. We need strategic reserves to reduce the dependency of our supply chain, especially for pharmaceuticals”, said the Commission President, as the Parliament was just about to vote on Nathalie Colin-Oesterlé’s report on drug shortages (see EUROPE 12527/10).
Continuing global cooperation for universal access to a vaccine
“Vaccine nationalism puts lives at risk. Vaccine cooperation saves them”, said Ms von der Leyen. She has championed global cooperation, stressing that it must continue to accelerate the deployment of a vaccine against Covid-19 and make it accessible to all around the world (see EUROPE 12558/7). “None of us will be safe until all of us are safe – wherever we live, whatever we have. An accessible, affordable and safe vaccine is the world’s most promising way to do that”, she said again.
In the same spirit, while some countries are turning their backs on multilateralism and on the WHO in particular – notably the United States, which she did not name – the President of the Commission announced the organisation, in cooperation with Italy, under the Italian presidency of the G20, of “a world summit to learn the lessons” of the Covid-19 pandemic at the global level.
The painful experience of the budget
In response, the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) welcomed the fact that health is finally at the top of the agenda in the State of the Union discourse, as Covid-19 exposed the vulnerability of our health systems.
However, the organisation questioned whether Member States would support Ms von der Leyen’s proposals after the painful experience of the European budget. As a reminder, European leaders agreed to limit the budget for health to €1.67 billion instead of the €9.37 billion proposed by the European Commission (see EUROPE 12533/5).
Ms von der Leyen also mentioned this aspect, expressing her gratitude to the European Parliament “ready to fight for more funds and to remedy the budget cuts made by the European Council”.
Read the State of the Union speech: https://bit.ly/3iBviKK (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean and Aminata Niang)