Representatives of the European Parliament, the EU Council and the European Commission reached an interim agreement on Monday 14 December on the European Health Programme EU4Health. The text includes the idea of providing stocks of medicines as well as replacement medical staff in case of a crisis. It also plans to set aside at least 20% of the budget for disease prevention and health promotion.
EU4Health is the fourth health programme funded by the European budget. After intense negotiations, the EU institutions decided to allocate €5.1 billion to the programme, half the amount proposed by the European Commission in its revised proposal, but ten times more than the current Health Programme.
The programme will have to: - make health systems more resilient to cross-border health threats such as Covid-19 and improve crisis management capacity; - make EU health a reality by investing in cancer care, better pandemic preparedness, availability of medicines and innovation; - strengthening digital health and disease prevention.
The Regulation establishes an EU4Health Steering Group composed of representatives of the Member States and the Commission. The group will be consulted on the annual work programmes and will monitor the implementation of the programme. The annual work programme shall be established by the adoption of an implementing act following a vote by the representatives of the Member States.
According to the Renew Europe group, activities related to sexual and reproductive health care will be covered by the programme. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)