Brussels (Brussels Morning) – The EU Council urges the European Commission to prioritize health in its next five-year term. It Includes addressing workforce deficiencies, medicine supply security, non-communicable diseases, and enhancing health coordination and investment tools.
The EU Council is calling on the European Commission to keep health as a focus in its forthcoming five-year term. In conclusions approved on 21 June 2024, member states acknowledge the job already undertaken to improve health policy coordination at the EU level, highlight the continuing challenges facing the EU’s health system, and outline the key areas of focus for maintaining the European Health Union.
What Challenges Face the EU Health System?
In its conclusions, the EU Council states that the EU’s health system confronts significant challenges. These include health workforce deficiencies, which member states and the EU Commission are urged to address through investment, digital tools, information sharing, collaboration at the EU level and adapted regulatory frameworks.
How Will the EU Improve Medicine Supply Security?
Another key challenge is enhancing the security of the supply of medicines and medical devices. The EU Council calls on member states and the EU Commission to persist in working on mitigating shortages of essential medicines, including via the Critical Medicines Alliance and asks the Commission to consider submitting a critical medicines act, which would deliver a legal framework for addressing supply chain vulnerabilities.
What Role Will Digital Tools Play in EU Health?
The EU Council also notes that priority requirements in healthcare should be addressed. Developing an independent, needs-evidenced database can assist in identifying unmet health-related patient and societal conditions. As the next steps, the installation of a voluntary, member-state-driven mechanism for assessing and prioritising such needs and the EU-level coordination of public support to handle the most pressing health-related unmet needs could be considered.
The EU Council also calls on member states and the Commission to bolster action in priority areas by enhancing the EU’s implementation tools, including EU4Health, and designing new ones such as an EU health investment hub.
What Actions Are Proposed for Non-Communicable Diseases?
The Council’s conclusions also point to domains where further effort needs to be taken. These include the precluding of non-communicable diseases, which are accountable for nearly 90% of all deaths in the EU. The Council calls on member states and the Commission to encourage healthy lifestyles and environments, including through assuming the legislative proposals announced under Europe’s Beating Cancer program and strengthening the work on the ‘Healthier Together’ initiative.
Likewise, action in the scope of preparedness and communicable diseases should include supporting cross-border health dangers high on the EU’s agenda, supporting the fight against mis- and disinformation, and enhancing the security of the supply of relevant medicines and medical devices.
In a communication issued in November 2020, the European Commission revealed the establishment of a European Health Union (EHU). The EHU aims to facilitate closer collaboration among member states at the EU level on matters connecting to health care, including a collective retort to health crises at the EU level; available, cheap and innovative medical supplies; better precluding, treatment and aftercare for diseases such as cancer.
