On Thursday 30 November in Brussels, the European ministers responsible for health will discuss ways of improving the EU’s open strategic autonomy in the field of health, including medicine shortages and the EU’s pharmaceutical strategy.
The meeting will be chaired by Mónica García, Spain’s Health Minister. The European Commission will be represented by Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides.
Finally, over lunch, the health ministers will discuss a global approach to combating childhood obesity in Europe.
In the context of building a stronger European Health Union, a number of measures are planned to strengthen the European Union’s resilience, particularly with regard to addressing medicine shortages, explains a note from the Spanish Presidency of the Council on the EU’s open strategic autonomy (https://aeur.eu/f/9qx ).
Mental Health. The ministers will approve conclusions on mental health (see EUROPE 13291/11).
The Spanish Presidency will inform the ministers of the negotiations underway on the regulation that defines quality and safety standards for substances of human origin intended for human application, such as blood, tissues and cells. The Council adopted its negotiating position on 25 October and negotiations with the European Parliament are currently underway (see EUROPE 13281/24).
The Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU will take stock of the state of negotiations on several other ongoing legislative dossiers, such as the regulation on fees for the European Medicines Agency, the regulation on the European Health Data Space and the pharmaceutical package.
Miscellaneous. France will raise the issue of the implementation of the regulations on medical devices (MDR) and in vitro diagnostic medical devices (IVDR). The implementation of the regulation on medical devices is posing major difficulties for all players in the sector, according to a French report (https://aeur.eu/f/9qz ).
Belgium will defend the adoption of a Common Approach on the organisation of medical evacuations of injured citizens from Gaza (https://aeur.eu/f/9r0 ).
The Maltese delegation, on behalf of several delegations (Austrian, German, Belgian, Croatian, Cypriot, Danish, Estonian, French, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, etc.), will raise the topic of health and climate change (https://aeur.eu/f/9qy ). These countries are asking to analyse the threats to health (including non-communicable and communicable diseases) and healthcare systems resulting from extreme weather events.
Lastly, Germany and the Netherlands will be discussing collaboration and exchanges on ‘long Covid’ (https://aeur.eu/f/9r1 ). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)