Debate: Coronavirus outbreak, state of play and ensuring a coordinated European response to the health, economic and social impact
Date: TUESDAY, 10 MARCH 2020
Speaker: Stella Kyriakides
Language: EN

Several of you mentioned the need to strengthen the European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control. We are, at the moment, already working with them on this and they are maximising their outreach in terms of being able to respond to Member States with a specific response team. When called, they go on the ground to Member States to offer advice. This has already happened in at least two Member States and I trust that they will be able to respond to more as more requests come in.  The second point I want to pick up is that it was mentioned that the Commission should not be reading about measures in the newspapers or be waiting to hear what they need to do. Well I can assure you we do not read about daily events in the newspapers. We are briefed by the Health Security Committee and there is an early response warning and response system which is precisely there to exchange information and coordinate. We are in very close coordination with all the European health ministers. There was an emergency Health Council last Friday and I speak with health ministers at least on a weekly basis, trying to address here their needs and different problems.  I want to be absolutely clear – this is not a situation where any of us have the luxury of saying we’re going to be reading about it in the press or as it comes along. This is an evolving situation and we are literally holding meetings at least two or three times a day to see how the situation is changing, and this is the only way we’re going to be able to address the many challenges. But, there is no one-size-fits-all for this situation. Not all Member States are facing the same challenges so we need to be constantly on board with ministers and readdress the way that we are advising and helping them move along. Today there is a European Council with the Heads of State and it’ll be held via teleconference.  Several of you mentioned the need and the problems that we have with possible medicine shortages. I want to assure you that what we have heard so far – and yesterday I had a video call with the European Medicines Agency – is that we have had no reports of medicine shortages, but it is something that is of concern to us and we are monitoring the situation very closely. We will be re-examining it several times a week with the European Medicines Agency. It is true that dependency on third countries is an issue and it’s an issue that has been highlighted. This was already in my mission letter to come forward with a pharma strategy by the end of 2020 and we will be looking at that, but in terms of the day-to-day situation we’re working very closely with the EMA on this. Research. Significant funding has been put towards research for vaccine development, with a potential to reach almost EUR 140 million through Horizon 2020 and the Innovative Medicines Initiative. Last week funding of (EUR) 47.5 million was awarded to 17 projects with 136 research teams working across Europe. Since there was also mention of the international dimension, (EUR) 232 million has been allocated to different sectors to boost global preparedness, with EUR 114 million going to the WHO, EUR 15 million to Africa, EUR 100 million to urgently needed research and diagnostics, and over EUR 3 million to the Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism. Fake news. (This is a) huge area. I think that we can all agree in this plenary, in this Chamber, that fake news and disinformation is extremely dangerous. Last week the Commission convened a meeting with all the big social media outlets – they were all there – and Commissioner Jourová to address this problem. We’re taking it extremely seriously and everyone – everyone – has a part to play in this, so we can all be sure that what is out there for citizens is scientifically-based responsible information. Finally, containment. I agree with you, I agree with what many of you said – that containment is key at this point. There are very many unpleasant measures that have had to be taken, but these measures are important in order to be able to slow down the spread and to save lives. And as I said before, we need to make sure that – and this is the coordination that we are doing, almost on a daily basis – Member States are taking these measures, but, again, I repeat there is no one-size-fits-all approach for Member States.  And finally, I want to reiterate what has been said many times here today already. This is not a time for panic and we need to stress that. It is also not a time for complacency. It is a time for solidarity. It is a difficult situation for us all and the Commission is not meeting once a week – we are meeting almost on a daily basis, working in parallel and with Commissioner Lenarčič, we speak several times a day on a number of common issues, and this needs to continue. But we need to stay calm. We need to stay solid. We need to stay focused. And we need Members of the European Parliament to spread these messages to their governments as well. We are all in this effort together, we are going to get through this, but we need to get through this responsibly and effectively.