Members of the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) met on Thursday 28 October with Matthew Hudson, Head of Health Resource Management at the European Commission.
MEPs from all political groups took the opportunity to express their concerns to Mr Hudson about the funding of the EU’s 2021–2027 health programme, EU4Health.
The cause of their worry is none other than HERA, the new European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority, which was unveiled in mid-September (see EUROPE 12792/24). The latter has taken the form of an internal Commission service and will be finance with €6 billion over 6 years, drawing on the budgets that were initially agreed for the RescEU, Horizon Europe, Next Generation EU and, of course, EU4Health programmes.
Out of the €5.1 billion allocated to the EU4Health programme, the Commission now plans to retain €2.8 billion to fund HERA.
The European Parliament’s rapporteur Cristian Bușoi (EPP, Romania) acknowledged in an exchange of views with Mr Hudson that EU4Health had been put together under the priority of better anticipating health threats (see EUROPE 12674/3), a role that will now fall to HERA.
However, he noted that the programme also aims to support measures related to the fight against chronic diseases, digital health and the resilience of health systems within the EU. Among other priorities.
From the same envelope of €5.1 billion, it was also planned to fund the new tasks of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Missions currently the topic of interinstitutional negotiations (see other news).
“That is why I am concerned that the transfer of 50% of the current EU4Health budget to HERA will not allow for the implementation of the programme’s objectives”, emphasised Bușoi.
Portugal’s Sara Cerdas (S&D) and Czech Kateřina Konečná (The Left) also insisted that 30% (€1.2 billion) of the programme was intended to be used in the fight against cancer and that 8% was blocked to cover administrative expenses.
“Allocating more than half of the EU4Health budget to just one of its priorities seems to be somewhat disproportionate. There is no doubt that HERA needs to have a substantial and solid budget. But a balance will have to be struck to ensure that the other priorities of the programme are also supported fairly and effectively”, argued Véronique Trillet-Lenoir (Renew Europe, France).
As for Michèle Rivasi (Greens/EFA, France), she compared HERA to “a bull in a china shop”, accusing the European Commission of having trampled over months of work that were needed to develop EU4Health.
The European Commission’s promises
All MEPs therefore urged the Commission representative to provide them with guarantees concerning the funding of the other objectives of the programme, which everybody fears will become “collateral victims” of HERA.
“The creation of HERA does not in any way change what is laid down in the regulation on EU4Health. That means, the four general objectives remain, the ten specific objectives remain, the process of consultation – whereby we will consult the Member States, we’ll seek stakeholders’ input, we’ll come to the European Parliament – remains. This will also cover HERA’s actions”, argued Matthew Hudson.
He also promised MEPs that the Commission would respect the spending ceilings set out in the regulation, “it’s the 20% minimum for disease prevention or the 12,5 % maximum for the procurement of medicines or the 8% maximum for international actions”.
“At the moment we are well within the maxima and we are well over the minimums, I can assure you”, said Hudson, pledging to come back and report to MEPs as soon as necessary. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)