Debate: Programme for the Union's action in the field of health for the period -
Date: THURSDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2020
Speaker: Stella Kyriakides
Language: EN

These are very difficult times for our citizens, for businesses, for our Member States, for our European health care systems. The worldwide surge of cases is extremely worrying. Over eight million cases have been confirmed in the EU alone. Hospital admissions are increasing every day. Pandemic related health issues are growing. Too many people have lost their loved ones. Too many are suffering and every day when we hear numbers these numbers are about people. They are about families, they are about life stories.  In this context I am delighted that in the trilogues for the Next Generation EU, and our future MFF, this essential programme for the health of our citizens has emerged stronger and reinforced to EUR 5.1 billion. I know that this House has played a key role in this effort and I want to thank everyone, especially Cristian Buşoi in particular, for sharing our vision and for fighting our corner on this. I think actually I have been losing my voice over the last week from, at the beginning, speaking with everyone to thank them for this effort and yesterday from the excitement of hearing the news. This programme will be a fundamental element of our work towards building a genuine and strong European health union by strengthening our crisis preparedness and management and the resilience of our health systems. COVID has shown us the importance of working together to reinforce our crisis readiness actions. This implies sufficient funding at EU level and building synergies with other instruments such as rescEU for stockpiling products needed for crisis.  We also need to take forward the digital transformation of the health sector to build on the positive momentum and more generally, we need to strengthen the EU’s ability to support and complement Member States’ programmes and actions.  The public needs to hear a clear message that public health is a priority area for Europe’s recovery. At the beginning of this crisis citizens across Europe were all saying, ‘where is the EU? We need more EU in public health’ and I believe that together, Parliament and the Commission, we have shown that we have been listening. We have been listening that targeted investment in crisis preparedness and stronger health systems are essential for the future. We are mobilising all possible resources to strengthen our defences, including crucially funding, which in many cases is a determinant of feasibility.  I am glad that we agree on the basic rationale and policy objectives of the future EU4Health programme. The amendments proposed take into account the COVID-19 challenges and other public health needs. The Commission notes Parliament’s wish for a more inclusive governance framework and we will be doing this. This is clearly an area that we will be discussing, though we should avoid adding anything to the governance, and I stress this, that would be overly burdensome or introduce mechanisms that would prevent efficient preparation and implementation of our programme. We have built a long tradition of consulting extensively with stakeholders and we place a high value on the input received. I am personally committed to maintaining this approach during the preparatory phase of the work plans as well as their implementation. We are partners in this. The gravity of the current health crisis calls for swift conclusion of the negotiations. It calls for a programme that complements the other important strands of EU action to strengthen the resilience of our health systems and our preparedness and response capacity to cross-border health threats.  I am convinced that an agreement in the first reading is both possible and is absolutely necessary. We will do our utmost to facilitate negotiations between co-legislators. What is now required is close cooperation and the swift agreement between Parliament and the Council to ensure EU4Health can deliver its full potential.  I fully count on your support to take this forward, and what I would like to share with you in ending is that when we put this programme forward, and we called it EU4Health, I felt from that moment on that we had true partners within this institution and having achieved the proposed increase of the budget, I now know that we’re going to be partners hand in hand with this because this is what citizens expect from us and this is what we need to deliver.