2023-09-26 17:15:18
“The only path that ensures our future, the one I want to talk to you regarding today, is up to us, it’s up to you to trace it. It is the re-foundation of a sovereign, united and democratic Europe. Let us have the audacity to forge this path together. », Emmanuel Macron, Sorbonne speech, September 26, 2017.
Six years to the day following the President of the Republic’s founding speech at the Sorbonne calling for building a more sovereign, united and democratic Europe, this is the opportunity to take stock of the President of the Republic’s European action. The upheavals on our European continent in recent years – the Covid-19 pandemic, the return of war to European soil, etc. – have accelerated, as evidence, the Europe of health: more solidarity between Europeans but also more sovereignty and power, in the service of the health of Europeans. This article reviews the main advances in European health since 2017.
Construction of a Europe of Health
- Adoption of the Health Package, strengthening the capacities of European health agencies (EMA and ECDC) and establishing coordination of preparation and response strategies to future serious cross-border threats to health.
- Europe has become the continent producing the most messenger RNA technology vaccines in the world. It contributed to international solidarity in the face of the pandemic, by sharing nearly 530 million doses once morest Covid-19 to 146 countries.
- Creation of a new European authority for preparedness and response to health emergencies, HERA.
- To strengthen the European health industry, launch of important projects of common European interest (PIIEC), including one in the health field is currently being set up.
One Health
By imposing ambitious health and environmental requirements within our market and with respect to imports from the rest of the world, we are acting as Europeans for human and environmental health, which are closely linked.
- Agreement by Member States to reduce harmful emissions from industrial installations and intensive livestock farming into the air and water, to better protect human health and the environment.
- Agreement between Member States on a European instrument to combat imported deforestation. Deforestation is a risk factor for the emergence of zoonoses.
- Strengthening environmental and social requirements in trade agreements.
European civil protection force, particularly in medical matters, with the creation of a European financing and equipment purchasing capacity, RescEU, to help Member States and the 9 participating States respond to transport and logistics emergencies. The EU notably provided aid to the Ukrainian population by drawing on the RescEU medical reserve.
A renewed Euro-African partnership in the field of health
- During the Covid-19 crisis, Europe mobilized quickly and concretely to supply anti-Covid vaccines to the African continent, train medical personnel and strengthen analysis and sequencing capacities. . Several African countries have also benefited from a transfer of mRNA technology, as part of a WHO initiative, in order to increase Africa’s health sovereignty. This cooperation gave rise, for example, to the emergency deployment of 65 flights serving as humanitarian airlifts, the majority of which deployed in Africa (12 of the 20 beneficiary countries) for a budget of 10 million and the delivery of 365 million doses of vaccine.
- As part of the European Union’s “Global Gateway” strategy, Africa benefits from half of the funding committed, i.e. 150 billion euros by 2027 to support, particularly in the field of health, financing sustainable and quality infrastructure that strengthens the sovereignty of the African continent: security of pharmaceutical supply chains, development of local production capacities, etc.
The need for a united and sovereign Europe in health matters has been highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic and has helped accelerate our European response.
The Covid-19 crisis has given a boost to European integration in health matters, both in terms of solidarity between European states and in the need to strengthen European strategic sovereignty in health matters.
Solidarity between European countries was expressed every day in a concrete way during the crisis: welcoming patients or sending medical teams to relieve the most affected countries (for example, Germany, Poland and Romania). sent teams of doctors to help treat patients in hospitals in northern and southern Italy), donations of medical equipment, pooling efforts to enable the return home of more than 78,000 traveling Europeans , stranded abroad including 8,000 French men and women, establishment of joint research programs, etc.
It also contributed to awareness of the need to strengthen our European strategic sovereignty, particularly in health matters, in order to limit our dependence for the supply of products with high public health issues. France is thus a coordinating member of the IPCEI health, a European project of which one of the axes aims to innovate to make the production of medicines on European production sites more competitive and greener. The “pharmaceutical package” proposed by the European Commission will strengthen our common resilience, as we did with the HERA instrument. France also supports the initiative taken by Belgium of a Critical Medicines Act making it possible to identify the critical elements of the sector, to invest in them and to have a relevant aid policy, as was done on the European critical matters.
Useful links :
Assessment of the European action of the President of the Republic.
Strengthen our health sovereignty.
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