Debate: COVID- pandemic: lessons learned and recommendations for the future
Date: TUESDAY, 11 JULY 2023
Speaker: Margaritis Schinas
Language: EN

On a more personal note, it was a great honour to represent the Commission and co-chair the contact group of vaccines with many of you, some present, some not here in this debate. We joined efforts with remarkable contributions from my Commission colleagues and many of you, thank you for this institutional cooperation.  But now today is time to draw the lessons from the pandemic. And your report offers an important contribution to this. First, is about resilience. With the pandemic, we learned how to manage the short term. How to act as firefighters. But we also need parallel to that, to make sure that we have a sturdy legacy for the future as architects. And this is precisely the objective of our European Health Union, which lies at the very heart of our efforts. The vaccine strategy was a game changer. As your report very rightly mentions. We ensured, contrary to the people who were not putting their faith in Europe, we ensured that all Europeans had access to safe and effective vaccines at the same time, on the same conditions, regardless of where they lived or their social and economic situation. We agreed new rules to address cross-border threats to health. And we developed the digital COVID certificate to take our lives back and regain mobility. We reinforce the mandates of the European Medicines Agency and the European Centre for Disease Control. We set up the Health Emergency Response Authority. That has all been instrumental to prepare for crisis preparedness. And of course, we also revised our pharmaceutical framework so that we can deal with access to medicines. Parallel to adopting a global health strategy. Honourable Members, this has been a great European success story. This was Europe at its best.  Lesson number two, mental health. This is Europe’s silent pandemic. It affects 1 in 6 people in the EU and comes at a cost of EUR 600 billion yearly, more than 4 % of our GDP. Addressing mental health is at the same time an issue for society, but also an issue for the economy. Our communication on a comprehensive approach to mental health, adopted one month ago, brings mental health to the spotlight. And whilst we have been working in this very complex area for years, this is the first time we propose a truly comprehensive approach going beyond health policy alone. And this is precisely linked to the post-pandemic world that has exacerbated these transformative stressors that have worsened the situation on mental health.  Lesson number three, the internal market. The pandemic taught us that is vital, crucial in times of crisis to keep supply chains open. Since its creation, HERA is acting as our countermeasures insurance because we don’t want to see in Europe anymore the dramatic situation we faced in the early weeks of the pandemic when we realised the cost of shortage of ventilators, masks or even gloves. Never again Europe will find ourselves in that situation. Supply chains of essential goods are global. And this is why we will keep enhancing efforts with trading partners to secure production. And this is also why we are committed to a new pandemics agreement to foster global cooperation on these issues. The key concept of open strategic autonomy is more timely and more pressing than ever before. Sovereignty and cooperation go together.  Lesson number four, global solidarity. Early in the pandemic, team Europe mobilised close to EUR 54 billion to address the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic to the rest of the world. Team Europe also contributed to protecting people around the world. With more than half a billion vaccines donated, more than any other bloc on the planet. Now in these post pandemic times, we must continue to support partners, incentivise local manufacturing capacities and help vulnerable countries to tackle inequalities.  Honourable Members, this non-exhaustive list demonstrates examples of European action to shield the health of people within our Union and beyond our borders. What we have collectively achieved was nothing short of a miracle. This work will be part one of the main legacies of the current political cycle and one of the most telling examples of institutional cooperation. This was Europe at its best. This was the European way of doing things.