Debate: Coronavirus outbreak
Date: WEDNESDAY, 29 JANUARY 2020
Speaker: Nikolina Brnjac
Language: EN

The Presidency takes this issue very seriously. We monitor the situation in close cooperation with Member States, authorities, EU institutions, bodies and agencies and with international organisations such as the World Health Organisation. The first cases were reported on 31 December 2019. Already on 9 January, the Chinese authorities reported that the outbreak was caused by the novel coronavirus. It is genetically closely related to the virus that caused more than 8 000 cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome, better known as SARS.  First, I’d like to state that available data about the virus transmissibility and fatality rates should be treated with caution as the situation is still evolving. What we know is that the virus causes a potentially very dangerous illness, as the mortality rate of the 2019 virus seems to be lower than the SARS, but it is still very high: about 3 percentage of the cases, varying with age, and the incubation period during which any infected persons can infect others seems to be longer. It is, therefore, potentially a serious threat.  As I speak, over 6 000 cases of coronavirus infections have been confirmed in China and Southeast Asia and regrettably 132 persons have died. So far, to the best of our knowledge, no EU citizen currently in China has been infected but some isolated cases have been reported in Europe. In the beginning, victims seemed to have been infected by animals, but in recent days first the Chinese and then the German authorities have confirmed human—to—human transmission of the virus. This increases the potential of the virus to infect a large number of people. As you know, the Commission has the possibility and duty to assist Member States, in particular, in cases of cross—border health threats and Member States’ competent authorities follow the developments very closely. The Health Security Committee, which deals with serious cross—border threats to health and which involves all Member States and the Commission, has already met three times to exchange information about the outbreak and will of course be involved in the further coordination of the response to this health threat. As you know, we also have a specialised European Agency active in this field: the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. It now provides, on an almost daily basis, updates about the situation. I dare, therefore, say that, as regards the threat to public health in Europe we have sufficient expertise available to handle the situation. Furthermore, Member States’ authorities are very vigilant to further developments and, as long as there is adherence to appropriate prevention and control practices, there is a low likelihood that secondary cases will occur in the European Union. If, however, a person infected outside Europe would be discovered late, the risk of secondary transmission would be high, so we need to remain vigilant. Let me now further outline what we have undertaken so far. On Monday, we very swiftly activated the EU’s Integrated Political Crisis Response mechanism for enhanced information sharing among Member States, the Commission and the European External Action Service. This mechanism brings together, under the steer of the Council Presidency, all relevant experts from the Member States and the European Union institutions, such as in fields of health, consular affairs and civil protection. It is an effective tool to support a collective horizontal response covering both the European Union internal and external dimension of the situation. The objective at this stage is to facilitate information sharing across relevant sectors based on expert input from all EU services so as to gain a common understanding of the situation and the latest developments. As regards the need for repatriation of EU citizens, it should be noted that consular affairs fall under Member States’ competence, but, of course, also here we have means for cooperation. We also called on Monday a telephone conference among the Member States. Through these coordination and facilitation efforts we are giving Member States the opportunity to update and support each other on their repatriation plans. Close cooperation between the Council structures and preparatory bodies will enable us to reach, effectively and in an appropriate manner, whatever way the situation develops. We have taken this step proactively to ensure we are prepared. We are looking forward to hearing from the Commission about their work, which is closely linked to our efforts. For example, as regards the activation of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism, which has been requested by several Member States.