On Thursday 25 September, European Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare Olivér Várhelyi defended the proposal for the ‘health’ section of the EU Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2028-2034, assuring that “we have significantly increased the firepower of EU health actions with this budget”.
During an exchange of views with members of European Parliament’s Committee on Public Health, the commissioner said “the times we’re living in require us to take a much broader approach than to just focus on public health”. This is why “we have a much more comprehensive budget”, because “we are now also drawing in other sectors to reinforce our health sectors”.
Olivér Várhelyi even stated that compared to what the EU has done under the ‘EU4Health’ initiative, “you will see that in the next budget we will be doing much, much more”. He said he hoped the meeting would “help us to preserve the proposal as is, or maybe even increase [it], I don’t know”.
The commissioner assured MEPs that the Commission would continue to fund all initiatives, including the ‘Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan’, reference networks and the fight against antibiotic resistance. “Everything we fund under the current ‘EU4Health‘ initiative will continue. These are long-term objectives. They are not limited to a single mandate or a single Multiannual Financial Framework”, insisted Olivér Várhelyi.
Responding to Ruggero Benedetto Italo Razza (ECR, Italian), the commissioner admitted that “if we don’t improve the ‘public health’ component as well, we will never be able to increase our competitiveness”. He added that the element of ‘prevention’ in the EU action plan on cardiovascular disease would be strengthened. “Thanks to the big data we now generate, we can very precisely determine the level of risk each individual faces”, he said. “As for whether I will be able to convince my fellow commissioners responsible for financial and budgetary matters to accept that investment in prevention should be considered a cost that can be deducted from national budget deficits, I’m not so sure”, he quipped.
Currently, under Horizon Europe, the ‘health’ cluster represents €8.2 billion (2028-2034). Under the future MFF, collaborative research in this area will rise to €20 billion, said the commissioner.
“If we want to lead in health and deliver quicker and better results to patients, we need funding instruments that match our ambitions”, he stressed. That’s where the Competitiveness Fund comes in. “We have moved from €4.6 billion under ‘EU4 Health’ to a dedicated window for health, biotech, agriculture, and bioeconomy, with €22.6 billion”, concluded the commissioner. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)