We need to learn from our coronavirus experience: we need to be better prepared, less bureaucracy for healthcare workers and businesses – and we need the economy to stand strong.
Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper) When COVID-19 hit Europe, it had serious consequences and we were faced with a major challenge. This has been on my mind during the year I have spent as a member of the European Parliament’s specialized committee on lessons learned from the coronavirus pandemic and recommendations on how to better prepare the EU for the next health crisis. All of this is summarised in the so-called COVI report.
MEPs have submitted more than 4000 amendments to the draft report. So, my 63 amendments don’t take up much space in the overall landscape. However, even if they only represent a breadth of all the amendments, they are still important.
The report risks being forgotten among the many crises of our time. After all, there is a war in Ukraine, an energy crisis, and a climate battle that has not yet been won. However, this does not mean that we should forget to learn lessons from the pandemic we have experienced.
Because a new epidemic can develop into a pandemic again. Just as our increasing age and weight, declining population, resistance to antibiotics, and the prevalence of chronic, multimorbid, and co-morbid conditions are spreading, pose potential health crises. In addition, investments in research and innovation generally shy away from the EU because the regulatory environment has become a jungle of bureaucracy and rules that either work against each other or simply do not make sense or add value. The EU can be a regulatory monster. We need to put an end to this if the Europe we know is to have a future.
Therefore, the COVI report must be taken seriously!
What I have emphasized in my input to the report represents good cooperation with experts with whom I have been in close dialogue. Some of them have participated in the committee’s many consultations at my suggestion. We all agree on that we need a high speed of investment in thorough analyses of what happened and what could have happened – and what must not happen again. We need much more effective communication and coordination on prevention, preparation, response time and vaccines. Chains of command and responsibilities also need to be much clearer and more logical. It sounds banal, but it is crucial.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control was poorly prepared in terms of competencies and funding. However, the EMA, the EU’s medicines agency, stepped up a gear as the pandemic developed. We want to keep it in high gear. Fast-track authorization of vaccines and other equally important medicines should be approved faster than in the past. Especially citizens with low vaccine response rates need it.
There need for much more multi- and interdisciplinarity in our healthcare systems. Furthermore, we need to consider, that knowledge about health is – and always will be – uneven between different groups of the population. This needs to be recognized.
Intensive care staff need to be up to date with the latest knowledge and research. In many areas, they weren’t. As with most things in the health sector, this is a national responsibility. But it is also a shared duty to monitor each other better. This also applies to the number of intensive care beds and the amount of protective equipment. We must be able to produce enough ourselves, and every country must have its own stocks ready for use.
In addition, there are a lot of concrete things that can be done. All health institutions and civil society, including cultural and sports organizations, must be much more involved than they were. In addition, the health industry’s many small and medium-sized enterprises must be involved from the start, as they are often innovative and agile in responding to urgent needs and opportunities.
Moreover, the solution is not to simply close borders between countries during a pandemic. That saves no one and only hurts the economy. Right when we need it the most to generate money for unforeseen expenses. Supply chains must be kept open to ensure the production of essential groups of goods. In this context, a battle must be fought – again and again – to remove all unnecessary administrative burdens on business. Even in peacetime. In times of crisis, administrative burdens tend to grow like weeds and hit small and medium-sized enterprises doubly disproportionately. This reflects a dangerous and systematic structure that stifles the desire to do business and thereby create jobs. The jobs that are needed to generate the economy for what we need during a sudden health crisis. On the contrary, small and medium-sized enterprises must be recognized. This can be done, for example, with advance payments for orders that need to be delivered quickly and on a large scale.
In my proposals for the report, I am, of course, once again emphasizing the importance of not threatening to abolish patent rights for vaccines, medicines, and the like. This will not boost production anyway. On the contrary, it will scare pharmaceutical companies away from the close cooperation on health, which the EU should always prioritize.
COVID-19 has provided us with valuable lessons. We must learn from them – if we are to preserve the Europe we know.
