We made cancer a priority on the European Health agenda as the disease is considered to become the leading cause of death in the European Union. Our Group fought for the creation of a special committee on beating cancer (BECA), which over a period of 18 months looked at ways to better prevent, diagnose and tackle cancer. We welcomed the Commission’s Beating Cancer plan, which is currently being implemented. It provides a financial commitment of €4 billion in funding, including €1.25 billion from the EU4Health budget.
As mental health has been in decline for years – and worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic – we brought this public health issue to the forefront of attention in the European Union. We successfully pushed the European Commission to develop a comprehensive approach to this, and the S&Ds took the lead on the first-ever Parliament report on mental health, calling for a structured action plan at EU and national level with dedicated and enhanced funding.
The S&D Group initiated the setting up of the COVI committee, which, over 18 months, took a critical and comprehensive look at the impact the Covid-19 pandemic had on individuals’ daily lives. It also looked at the impact on social, economic and global levels, as well as on health, fundamental rights and democracy. Under S&D leadership, the committee adopted concrete recommendations on better preparing for future health crises. This includes recommendations for a strengthened and transparent Joint Procurement Mechanism to avoid the ‘me first’ behaviour in the face of crises. Beyond crisis times, this would allow the EU to procure vaccines, treatments and other medical supplies jointly. Moreover, the Joint Procurement Mechanism would facilitate the procurement of expensive or innovative medicines, especially in treating rare or less researched and novel diseases.
We contributed to safeguarding EU citizens’ health by improving preparedness, fostering collaboration and enabling rapid response through the new regulation on serious cross-border threats to health (SCBTH).
We strengthened the EU’s capacity to respond to health threats, promoting collaboration among member states by extending the European Centre of Disease Control mandate. We emphasised scientific expertise, international co-operation, and preparedness – enhancing the EU’s ability to protect the health and well-being of its citizens in a rapidly changing global health landscape.
We demonstrated a strong commitment to protecting the health of EU citizens in the face of potential public health crises with the Regulation on the reinforced role of the European Medicines Agency. Focusing on crisis preparedness, mitigating medicine shortages and facilitating faster approvals, the Regulation is a positive step toward ensuring the resilience of the EU’s healthcare system.
We have advocated to mitigate medicine shortages, which has triggered the Commission to launch a European Voluntary Solidarity Mechanism for medicines and adopt a Union list of critical medicines. The European Voluntary Solidarity Mechanism flags the needs of one member state for a given medicine to other member states, which can respond by redistributing medicines from their available stock. A European Stocks Monitoring Platform that is currently under development will also contribute to this objective.
We contributed significantly to strengthening the EU4Health Programme, through a substantial budget and comprehensive objectives. The programme plays a pivotal role in addressing immediate health challenges, supporting long-term health initiatives, and promoting collaboration among member states.
We have achieved an agreement on an EHDS that will give individuals control and autonomy over their health data while complying with the European data protection framework. It will support the use of health data for better healthcare delivery, including better research and innovation. Developments in oncology, neurological diseases, rare diseases and other areas of unmet medical need, for example, will benefit from research discoveries facilitated by the access to larger and broader data sets provided under the EHDS. Moreover, it will facilitate policy making and will enable the EU to make full use of the potential offered by a safe and secure exchange, use and reuse of health data.
We are not only committed to treating health issues, but we also want to look at the bigger picture and address the root causes by taking a preventative approach to health issues. This involves better legislation on food, tobacco, chemicals and on the environment to protect citizens.
We want to reduce toxic chemicals through the revision of crucial chemicals legislation concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), which is crucial in achieving a zero-pollution environment and ensuring a high level of human protection of health against harmful substances.
Air pollution is responsible for nearly 300,000 premature deaths annually in the European Union, making it the most significant environmental threat to our health. Air pollution contributes to a wide range of health issues, including heart attacks, strokes, respiratory problems, diabetes, dementia and lung cancer. The S&Ds are pushing for an ambitious new Ambient Air Quality Directive that protects citizens and reduces pollution in our environments.
We push for a safer and more balanced work environment, with positive implications for both physical and mental well-being, through legislation on health and safety in the workplace. We worked hard on a revision of the Asbestos at Work Directive. Additionally, we address the psycho-social risks of working with mental health conditions, especially concerning teleworking and the right to disconnect.
The S&D Group has called for renewed efforts, co-ordination and funding at an EU level to concretely address the growing mental health crisis, particularly in the context of pandemic and post-pandemic mental health conditions.
We advocate strongly for fair, rapid, equal and affordable access to vaccines and treatments in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We focus on measures that improve the affordability, accessibility and availability of medicinal products throughout all the member states by fighting for a robust EU Pharmaceutical Strategy. The environmental impact of pharmaceutical products, their production and subsequent waste is also an increasingly-concerning issue that calls for the vast improvement of environmental risk assessments of medicinal products for authorisation.
Antimicrobials, including antibiotics, are medicines used to prevent and treat infections. When overused, they create resistance, rendering bacteria or viruses unresponsive to medicines. This makes infections harder to treat, increasing the risk of disease transmission, severe illness and death. We want to take action to prevent the excessive use of antimicrobials and pharmaceutical waste in the environment, and we want more public and private research to develop new, effective antimicrobials to treat patients. AMR is already responsible for the deaths of 35,000 in the Union annually.
We need to look at social, economic and environmental factors, such as exposure to hazardous chemicals, in line with the One Health approach, and ensure that all action in the field of health is fully aligned with the proposals under the European Green Deal.
We want full transparency of net-pricing and reimbursement of different treatments in order to allow member states to be on an equal footing when negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for treatments that are not jointly procured. The S&Ds also emphasise the need to secure the transparency of clinical trial results through the swift implementation of the Clinical Trials Regulation, which has been heavily delayed.
We are committed to tackling the increasingly-prominent issue of shortages of medicines, which puts citizens at risk and jeopardises the provision of healthcare. We encourage the production of essential active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and medicines in Europe and an EU security of supply, ensuring own resources and therefore reducing reliance on non-EU countries, through strong legislative measures.
We want a coordinated, collaborative and open approach in the field of research to help us prevent and recover from future pandemics, as well as addressing unmet areas of medical need (UMN) and high-unmet medical need (HUMN). In this regard, we need a new approach to European health research and a budget extension on the EU health programme to achieve these aims.
We want to facilitate the provision of cross-border health care in the Union, through the creation of a European Health Data Space (EHDS).