On Tuesday, 9 March, the European Parliament approved by a large majority (631 votes in favour, 32 against and 34 abstentions) the new health programme for the 2021–2027 period, EU4Health, which aims to better anticipate health threats.
During a debate before the vote, a vast majority of MEPs were pleased that they had resisted the EU Council’s attempts to cut the budget and had retained a total budget of €5.1 billion over 7 years—that being half the amount proposed by the European Commission in its revised proposal but ten times more than the current ‘Health’ programme.
In total, 20% of this envelope is to be earmarked for health promotion and [disease] prevention, and 12.5% is to be earmarked for the creation of a European pharmacy of essential products to supplement national stocks in the event of a crisis.
“Member States understood rather late in the day that diseases know no borders and that it is necessary to cooperate”, declared the rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets. Nicolae Ștefănuță (Renew Europe, Romania) lamented that not all Member States were equally equipped to cope with the Covid-19 crisis, noting with regret that the inhabitants of Luxembourg were twice as likely to survive the virus as an inhabitant of Sibiu—two cities that were nevertheless twinned.
The subject of a compromise among the institutions last December, the EU4Health Programme aims to make healthcare systems more resilient to cross-border health threats, to make the European Health Union a reality, and to improve disease prevention and digital healthcare services (see EUROPE 12623/4).
“It marks the end of one journey and the beginning of another”, stated Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakides, adding that the new EU4Health Programme represents a tool for making lasting changes. “Knowing what we know now, we cannot go back to the old normal”, she continued, reminding MEPs about the package for a ‘Health Union’ on the table for co-legislators (see EUROPE 12600/24).
Link to the compromise text: https://bit.ly/3bs0uuD (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)