On May 9th, we celebrate Europe Day. This day honors the peace achieved among European countries as well as the anniversary of the ‘Schuman Declaration’. It’s on this date that in 1950, Robert Schuman (French foreign minister at the time) spoke about a new form of European cooperation, where wars between European countries wouldn’t be acceptable anymore. His proposal is considered to be the foundation of what is today the European Union.
Europe Day allows us to reflect on the role of the European Union and its past achievements. Today, more than ever before, we understand the importance of a united Europe, not only to maintain what has been achieved so far, but also to face new challenges, such as the pandemic.
The past year has shown what it means to fight an invisible enemy that affected all our lives. The Covid-19 pandemic represents the biggest health crisis witnessed in modern times and it has clearly underlined the weaknesses and inequalities that are still present in Europe today. Though there is still a lot of work to be done to overcome these inequalities, the crisis has shown the importance for Member States to work together towards a common goal for a healthier and better future.
To do so, the European Union has a crucial role to play. Though its health competencies are limited to supporting Member States’ actions and ensuring coordination between them, the pandemic has given more visibility to the work carried on by European Institutions on Health. As the virus spread across borders, it became clear that EU-level actions were needed to ensure a coordinated answer to the health crisis to avoid repeating the scenario that was witnessed in March 2020. Settling into its coordinator role, the European Commission slowly took the helm. It started by organizing weekly calls with representatives of the industry to discuss any problem that could have an impact on the supply of medicines. Among other things, this led to the creation of ‘green lanes’ which allowed medicines and personal protective equipment (PPE) to pass from a country to another without being blocked at the borders. The Commission went on to negotiate the joint procurement of PPE, allowing it to later become the face of the EU vaccine strategy, when it started negotiating the joint procurement of vaccines during the summer 2020.
While the European Commission has been under the spotlight recently due to hurdles linked to its vaccination strategy (mainly delays in vaccine supply), we need to bear in mind that it was the first time the Commission had to handle a crisis of that magnitude. It put a light on the shortcomings of some EU agencies due to a lack of competence to act, allowing a reflection on how to improve the current framework to ensure the EU will be ready to face future crisis.
This led to a package of proposals for a European Health Union, which aims to increase the EU’s preparedness in light of future sanitary crisis. We can mention among other proposals the one regarding the extension of the European Medicines Agency’s mandate to mitigate shortages, as well as the proposal to set up the European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Agency (HERA) which will enable the rapid availability, access and distribution of needed countermeasures.
It also spilled over into the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe, published in November 2020, which included lessons stemming from the health crisis, to increase the EU’s resilience and ensure Europe will continue to be a worldwide recognized hub for innovation.
Although it wasn’t planned that way, health will be at the center of the reflection around the Future of Europe. The opening of a web-platform on the 9th of May officially kicked off the Conference on the Future of Europe, which will take place in spring 2022. Originally mentioned in 2019 before the pandemic, this Conference aims at rethinking the way the EU works and could lead to a reform of the Treaties. No doubt the debate will be agitated and the handling of the crisis will fuel the conversation. This will be a great opportunity to address some of the shortcomings and maybe review the current sharing of health competencies. If you would like to discover more on the Conference on the Future of Europe and the new web-platform, please click here.