Remarks by High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell:
Sorry, I have to apologise. I have an urgent engagement just afterwards and I will have to leave soon after my intervention. Thank you to my colleagues [Commissioner for Health and Food Safety] Stella [Kyriakides] and [Commissioner for International Partnerships] Jutta [Urpilainen] who will be answering any question that they could address. Thank you for your understanding.
This Communication on an EU Global Health Strategy is very much needed because the COVID-19 pandemic has been a true game-changer.
We learned important lessons from this crisis. Now we need to take a step back to look at the broader picture and address its repercussions more structurally through a Global Strategy, based on new principles and actions.
After the pandemic, what [have we] learnt? We have learnt that health is no longer limited to a scientific and medical issue.
Health has become a critical element of foreign, security and trade policies. Remember when we discovered that not a single gram of Paracetamol was being produced in Europe? It is also a key area of international cooperation.
Unfortunately, there is massive unfinished work in global health. The progress [towards] health Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has even reversed has been back in many countries.
Now, we have [only] achieved a quarter of what is needed to reach the health targets by 2030.
It means that we clearly need an approach on health, which have [has] acquired significant geopolitical importance. Yes, it is no longer an issue of pharma and doctors – it is a geopolitical issue.
An approach in which international cooperation – Jutta [Urpilainen, Commissioner for International Partnership] will say much more about it -, security aspects and the need to ensure that our open strategic autonomy is a reality. This has to be considered as part of an increasingly complex equation.
In the Strategy, there are some key priorities.
From my perspective, first: strengthening multilateralism. We want to bolster the global health architecture, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) at its centre.
[Second,] a cooperative approach, fostering safe international travel and mobility.
We have to learn from the positive experience of the EU Digital Covid Certificate (EUDCC). Thank you, Stella [Kyriakides, Commissioner for Health and Food Safety] for your extraordinary work on that.
And, third, strengthening capacities for surveillance, prevention and detection of health threats abroad, including biological threats, that have a lot to do with our security.
Health is being weaponised, and we have to stand up against the attempts of making health a weapon. For that, we have to fight disinformation.
We have seen how the COVID-19 pandemic has been exploited by foreign actors willing to advance their own interests at the expense of others.
We are, and we will, continue pushing back against such attempts.
I can tell you that we will strongly support this agenda through the political dialogues, together with my fellow Foreign Affairs Ministers of the Council, to engage in with our partners, to facilitate this international cooperation and partnerships at the service of a global health.
Thank you.
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Remarks by Commissioner Stella Kyriakides:
Today, we are presenting Europe’s agenda for global action in the area of health for the next 10 years. This is an agenda based on values, principles, and actions.
COVID is of course the backdrop and the wake up call.
If we go back in our history of the last 30 years, we have been faced with HIV-AIDS, the Zika virus, Avian Influenza, Ebola, the list goes on and most recently Mpox and COVID. The silent pandemic of antimicrobial resistance may be next.
Health crises are not only increasing. They are also becoming more frequent.
The warning signs were there, clear for many years, but we were hit – globally – unprepared.
All these outbreaks highlight the global interconnectedness of health.
We cannot ignore the connection of humans and nature, shown so clearly in all these zoonotic diseases.
In a few years only, the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the climate crisis have eroded decades of progress towards sustainable development goals.
We need a new global health order to reverse these trends and to better tackle health threat heads on.
The EU will fully embrace its duty of taking a leadership role in this process.
At home, this is already happening through the European Health Union and the creation of HERA.
HERA has already established itself as a global player over the past year.
We already have a close cooperation arrangement with BARDA and are negotiating similar partnerships with South Korea and Japan. In the coming weeks, we will be signing one with the WHO.
Through it, we provided support for the development and access to COVID countermeasures, as well as the procurement of Mpox vaccines, the donation of potassium iodide to Ukraine or the financing of clinical trials for Ebola vaccines.
The first State of Health Preparedness Report, which we also adopt today, sets out what actions must be taken to enhance Europe’s health preparedness and also drive change globally.
For us, leadership on global health also comes with responsibilities, the kind of responsibility we showed with COVID vaccine donations and exports, at a time when others rather resorted to vaccine nationalism.
This is what this Global Health Strategy is about. It is about combining the external dimension of the European Health Union and the Team Europe approach and partnerships under the Global Gateway.
And of course this goes beyond pandemics.
We must tackle the root causes of ill health – be they economic, social, or environmental – always putting people at the centre.
If we address root causes with a “health-in-all-policies” approach – we might prevent diseases before they become health threats.
We need to focus our efforts to access the full range of healthcare services, including the update of vaccines against childhood diseases, in all parts of the world – especially for women and girls.
We need to invest in primary healthcare to improve health overall. In this context, strengthening the health workforce in third countries plays a key role.
Digitalisation, global research, resilient manufacturing, and supply chains are all critical pieces of the puzzle: lessons we learnt in the past three years are now becoming pillars of the EU’s global policy on health.
All this can only be done if we put a new multilateral governance in place. This includes a more effective and accountable WHO, which is sustainably financed and where we have a seat at the table: this should start with a formal observer status and proceed to full membership for the EU.
We cannot do this on our own, we need partners.
Partners in our Member States – with which we need to speak with one voice globally.
Partners, globally – and here I specifically refer to partners such as the US and other G7 countries.
With this strategy, we, together with our partners, will make a real change in global health, for real people on the ground.
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Remarks by Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen:
Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody.
First, I would like to thank all my colleagues and especially Stella [Kyriakides, Commissioner for Health and Food Safety] and Pepe [Josep Borrell, High Representative/Vice-President] for the excellent cooperation in preparing this important proposal.
I would also like to thank all stakeholders who have contributed to this Strategy during the consultations.
With this Strategy, the European Union is really stepping up its leadership. And I would like to make three points.
First, the new Global Health Strategy is a major component of the Global Gateway Strategy. With our strategic partnerships, we will promote health sovereignty and autonomy for more resilience. This is where we will make a difference compared to other global actors.
Our work on both strengthening the primary health systems and manufacturing health products in Africa, and now in Latin America and the Caribbean, is a flagship of this innovative way forward.
This includes also new initiatives, linking with other Global Gateway tracks, for example on the digitalisation of health systems, but also on education and skills development to strengthen workforce.
Secondly, these efforts must be supported by predictable and sustainable financing. The Strategy will mobilise all our existing instruments as programmed, including the NDICI, as well as explore innovative forms of financing.
This will include the human development window as part of the EFSD+ generating increased investments from the private sector.
We will also promote new financing methods at the global level, creating fiscal space for health system reforms in our partner countries.
Finally, the European Union and its Member States are amongst the largest funders of global health in the world, but this has not always been effective.
During the pandemic, and in the face of the urgency, we came together with our Member States and financing institutions and pulled our resources together to respond to the pandemic’s health and socio-economic consequences. And Team Europe was born.
€53.7 billion was committed in support of our partner countries, out of which €47.7 billion has now been spent. This positioned the European Union as a recognised global health champion.
Through this Strategy, we propose to leverage the Team Europe approach ensuring closer coordination with Member States so that political action and financial means are closely tied to the new priorities for more impact and results.
This will also increase our voice at the multilateral level so that we are stronger players and not only payers.
Thank you very much.
Source – EU Commission