The European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, is not convinced that the European Commission’s recent proposal to strengthen the mandate of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) will avoid the pitfalls highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This is what emerges from a six-month survey whose findings were published on Tuesday 9 February.
“The Covid-19 pandemic represents an unprecedented crisis and I acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the ECDC throughout this very difficult period. However, without specific new powers to better control the completeness and quality of the data it receives from national authorities, the ECDC cannot fully fulfil its mandate to help control the next pandemic”, the Ombudsman points out.
The draft ECDC Regulation, presented in November 2020 by the European Commission, leaves the EU agency dependent on the goodwill of the Member States due to the limited EU competences in the field of public health (see EUROPE 12600/24). For example, the agency’s recommendations will remain non-binding, as is currently the case.
The Ombudsman’s analysis
Ms O’Reilly’s survey focused on the activity of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) during the Covid-19 crisis. In particular, the Ombudsman examined how the centre collected information, the transparency of this information and how to communicate with the public.
In her conclusions, she regrets that the ECDC’s mandate prohibits it from collecting data, making assessments quickly obsolete. She is also critical of the agency’s lack of transparency, stressing in particular that some surveys were not published at the beginning of the crisis and that some discussions with international partners remain opaque.
In this context, she suggests six improvements for the ECDC, namely : - greater transparency on the development of its risk assessment; - greater transparency on the completeness of the data on which the risk assessment is based; - greater transparency regarding its interactions with international partners, such as the WHO or the Chinese CDC; - a revised communication strategy, more oriented towards the general public; - an updated language policy to use as many of the EU's official languages as possible; - the systematic publication of survey results.
The ECDC welcomed the evaluation, which “contains a number of important proposals on how to strengthen the role of the ECDC in European defence against infectious diseases” and encourages the legislator to consider new powers for the agency, its director stressed. Andrea Ammon also undertook to take the ombudsman's recommendations into account and to develop an action plan to strengthen the agency's capacities, particularly in the areas of monitoring, transparency and public communication.
The work of the co-legislators has just started in the European Parliament and the EU Council. In Parliament, Joanna Kopcińska (ECR, Poland) is rapporteur for the Committee on Public Health. The Committee on Budgets also plans to deliver an opinion. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)