EU4Health: 9.4 billion EUR budget needed for new EU health programme

14 Oct 2020 07:39 PM

To fill gaps exposed by COVID-19 and ensure that health systems can face future threats to public health, an ambitious EU health programme is needed, say MEPs.

On Wednesday, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety adopted its report on the programme for the EU's action in the health sector, the so-called “EU4Health Programme” with 74 votes to 5 and 1 abstention.

MEPs want to raise the budget for the programme to EUR 9.4 billion, as originally proposed by the Commission, to enhance health promotion and make health systems more resilient across the EU. COVID-19 has shown that the EU is in urgent need of an ambitious EU health programme to ensure that European health systems can face future health threats. This is not possible if the budget is reduced to EUR 1.7 billion as proposed by member states.

To reach the programme's objectives, the report proposes, inter alia, to:

To ensure it is implemented effectively, MEPs propose to set up a Steering Group consisting of independent experts in the field of public health.

MEPs also want to increase cooperation at EU level to improve readiness in case of a health crisis. They call for the mandates of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to be strengthened.

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