On Tuesday 28 February, Dolors Montserrat (EPP, Spanish) presented her draft report of the COVI special committee set up to draw lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The chair of the committee, Kathleen Van Brempt (S&D, Belgian), said: “We only have one report, one opportunity to give the right message”.
The draft report is based on four pillars: health, the coordinated approach to democracy and fundamental rights, the socio-economic impact, the EU and the world.
Dolors Montserrat stressed the need to strengthen European national health systems and to have a thriving European health industry with a competitive research community. She wants a regulation, an ambitious incentive system for researchers and pharmaceutical companies, and for the EU to maintain its intellectual property system and dedicated resources for research.
Regarding the socio-economic impact, Ms Montserrat highlighted the impact of the pandemic, especially on vulnerable people. She wants the Next Generation EU stimulus package to create more jobs in the Member States, especially in the health sector.
Concerning the democracy and fundamental rights pillar, she calls for more parliamentary scrutiny and for the Commission to assess the proportionality of restrictive measures in times of pandemic. She wants the interinstitutional agreement ‘Better Regulation’ to be revised to ensure European strategic autonomy in the field of health.
Ms Montserrat also drew attention to the fight against disinformation and the need to bridge the digital divide.
She wants to maintain transparency in supply chains during crises, calls for more joint procurement along the lines of vaccines, as well as for innovative procedures.
Ms Montserrat calls on the European Commission and Member States to develop a uniform strategic plan against cyber attacks, especially against critical infrastructure.
Finally, she said she was open to amendments from MEPs on lifting intellectual property rights from the World Trade Organization to try to reach a compromise.
Tilly Metz (Greens/EFA, Luxembourger) said that health should be a cross-cutting priority and that the report should deal more with zoonoses, pollution, lessons to be learned from the crisis and concrete actions related to it.
For Margarita de la Pisa (CRE, Spanish), the report did not sufficiently address the issue of transparency.
According to Kateřina Konečná (The Left, Czech), the report does not reflect the European Parliament’s position on a derogation to intellectual property rights. She wants to see more discussion on the lack of transparency of the advance purchase agreements, especially regarding the exchanges of Ursula von der Leyen and Albert Bourla and the lack of explanation given to the Parliament. She emphasised the excessive mortality in old people’s homes.
Sara Cerdas (S&D, Portuguese) wanted to see a report on long Covid - an issue also raised by Karsten Lucke (S&D, German) - as well as updated communication on the scientific point, increasing inequalities and the difficulties of vulnerable groups, and technology transfer for vaccine production.
Ewa Kopacz (EPP, Polish) made a point of mentioning child poverty, women, domestic violence and the inclusion of recommendations that would oblige Member States to develop future-oriented health systems.
Michèle Rivasi (Greens/EFA, French) wants the report to carry targeted messages and for Parliament to have its own experts and not depend on the expertise of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
For Véronique Trillet-Lenoir (Renew Europe, French), the health aspects are very important, but they have already been dealt with in other texts such as the regulation on cross-border threats (EU 2022/2371). In her amendments, the MEP prefers to deal with issues that are lessons learned from the crisis, working conditions, socio-economic and democratic aspects, as well as the difficulties of sectors that have suffered the consequences of the crisis.
Ms Montserrat expects many amendments. She herself will introduce some of them to invoke petitions.
The deadline for submitting amendments is 29 March.
More info: https://aeur.eu/f/5k4 (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)