EU countries hold primary responsibility for organising and delivering health services and medical care. EU health policy therefore serves to complement national policies, and to ensure health protection in all EU policies.

EU policies and actions in public health aim to protect and improve the health of EU citizens, support the modernisation of health infrastructure, improve the efficiency of Europe's health systems.

The pandemic showed the importance of coordination among European countries to protect people’s health, both during a crisis and in normal times when we can tackle underlying health conditions, invest in strong health systems and train the healthcare workforce.

Work is ongoing to strengthen the EU Health Union following lessons learned from the pandemic: reinforcing the mandates of the European Medicines Agency and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, addressing cross-border threats to health and creating a future-proof EU pharmaceutical policy. MEPs recently obtained better support for the EU4Health programme in the 2022 EU budget, with an additional €51 million to build up a strong Health Union and to make national health systems more resilient.

The Committee for Environment, Public Health, and Food Safety ENVI is Parliament’s main actor on health matters and is responsible for over 10% of Parliament´s total legislative activity.

The state of play of the EU's COVID-19 vaccination strategy: MEPs debate (part 3)