Members of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety discuss the EU’s preparedness and resilience in the field of public health with Stella KYRIAKIDES, Commissioner for Health and Food safety. The debate focus on recently published package of initiatives establishing the building blocks of a European Health Union, which includes a proposal on tackling serious cross-border health threats. The upcoming Pharmaceutical Strategy is also looked into. This transcription speech is the result of an automatic process. Check Against delivery

Brussels

exchange of views

statement

Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

healthcare safety (T)

CANFIN, Pascal (Renew, FR)

KYRIAKIDES, Stella (CY, EC)

Coronavirus outbreak (T)

ENVI - Building of a European Health Union: the Preparedness and Resilience Package and the Pharmaceutical Strategy: introductory remark by Pascal CANFIN, Chair and opening statement by Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal CANFIN (RE, FR), We move to the next agenda item item, and we I am happy to welcome Stella Kyriakides Commissioner for Health and Food Safety. A lot of new things on the agenda, of course. I guess you're going to maybe make an update regarding the very hot and sensitive covid-19 issues. But you are here as well to discuss the pharmaceutical strategy that is coming.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal CANFIN (RE, FR), And, of course, the text that were presented by the Commission about the EMA and the ECDC increased competences. So thank you very much, Stella, for being with us. We are a very important moment for Europe of health. And I guess that we are working together, this committee and yourself in the commission to build this and to draw the positive and the good lessons from this dramatic crisis.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal CANFIN (RE, FR), So we are going to have your analysis, your presentation for the next 10 minutes. And then a first round of speakers and coordinators, all of their representatives, then a second round of 10 questions. And each time you catch the eye and I hope you will be many to be able to participate. So I give you the floor directly.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Hello. Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon, Pascale. Very nice to be able to join the virtual meeting of the ENVI Committee. And again, I look forward to being able to be present as we were before.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Over the last eight months, the EU not only has learnt very many important lessons, we have learnt on the importance of solidarity. We have learnt the importance of cooperation. We have learnt that fragmentation makes us even more vulnerable.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, And we have also learnt of the importance of a sound and sustainable system needed to protect public health. Four days ago, the Commission put forward plans to build a stronger European Health Union to reinforce these priorities and enable the EU to prepare and to respond to cross-border health threat and not only more effectively.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, I had often spoken from the beginning of the crisis saying that we needed more EU in the area of public health, and I want to thank the members of the ENVI Committee because I've found many, many supporting voices from very early on on this. We need to provide better support to EU citizens and increase their capacity to coordinate and to ensure that we come out of this crisis stronger and in in more solidarity.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, You, as representatives of the citizens in this very important institution, I'm sure have heard so many times over the last months of citizens saying, where is the EU? Why can it not do more? And I think this is the time that we need to stand up to our responsibilities, our obligations, and show that there is a different way forward.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, So what of health measures, of course, will remain and remain a priority and member states' responsibility and competence, we propose to bolster the EU's legal framework for health security with the new regulation. We want to strengthen the mandate of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control on the European Medicines Agency.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, We need to reinforce that control and cooperation on crisis management. This, the intention is for increased situational awareness and preparedness in member states. This will facilitate clear and coordinated recommendations for risk management. This will give us the capacity to mobilise and deploy. You are very consistent teams.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, This was something that was really missing from the beginning of the pandemic, the ability for the EU to set task forces of specialists, weather epidemiologists or others to the member states when it was needed to be able to support and advise. We will to be able to support objective monitoring and assessment of the EU health systems.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, And it will give us a better protection to high risk groups and vulnerable groups in society. It will also give the EU a concrete role in international cooperation on global health security. Now, let me be a little bit more specific. The new framework will strengthen the system to monitor and mitigate shortages of critical medicines and medical devices.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Again, we saw at the beginning what a crucial issue this was and improve the assessment process for high risk medical devices. We need to be able to be proactive. We need the European Medicines Agency to have a role in seeing what the situation is with medicines and medical devices in case of a crisis in terms of preparedness could also support sharing of scientific evidence and the role and review of treatment develop.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, These proposals are based on the lessons that we have learnt. But I will say we are learning because we have not learnt. We're still learning. We're still in the middle of a pandemic from covid-19, but also on the call from member states at both political and technical levels. These are designed to meet the expectations of all our citizens.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, And we are all here representing EU citizens and all EU institutions, including, of course, the parliament, and to complement other major initiatives in order to improve public health. Now, one example of this is the pharmaceutical strategy that will be announced on the 24th of November. This is the aim of the EU to have a long term policy and vision to ensure it's crisis, resilient and sustainable, and to reinforce our position as a global leader in this critical area while ensuring access to affordable medicines for patients.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, The strategy will be focussing on four key areas we want to improve patients access to affordable medicines. We want to build comprehensive and innovation and support for unmet medical needs. In particular, we must harness the benefits of digital and emerging science and technology and reduce the environmental footprint.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, We want to pursue open and strategic autonomy, developing a diversified strategy and supply chains and addressing the root cause of shortages. And finally, we want to promote EU influence and competitiveness at the global level as a level playing field for all those operators within the EU. So the pharmaceutical strategy will be addressing both short term challenges linked to covid-19 and, of course, the longer term challenges linked to unmet medical needs, strategic autonomy and sustainable health systems, which we knew were there from before the pandemic.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, And the strategy was actually part of my mandate from where would be when we came into this position. So it's not as a result of the pandemic, but it definitely has. You have highlighted and adjusted according to the realities of covid-19. So the European Parliament's resolution of the 17th of September provided a very important input for our proposals.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, You will see this reflected in the strategy. It included a very useful and balanced analysis, both of the possible policies and measures that we could envisage at EU level through legislation and through cooperation. However, I need to underline something which I think is important, that both the pharmaceutical strategy and the health union, we can only see these are just the beginning.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, These are the first pages. These are the foundations of what are trying to achieve together to set Europe on a better and stronger course for public health. And this, I believe, is is something that we can achieve. We will be working very closely together with the European Parliament, but, of course, with all the member states and all the stakeholders.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, And it's up to us, top to us at this opportunity to convince everyone that this is the way forward and also not to lose this opportunity, because out of crisis comes opportunity. I always say, and we now have the opportunity to lay the foundations for a stronger health union within Europe. So I look forward closely to our strong and close cooperation, a stronger health systems for Europe's citizens.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, And then just like in and I do not want to take up more of your time, because I would like to be able to have the opportunity to exchange views just to share with you that the current situation across all the member states is really very critical in terms of covid-19. And we are seeing member states' health systems again being put out of the added pressure.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, But we are also seeing and I wanted to highlight this and share it with the ENVI Committee because I'm sure that you, as representatives of the citizens, are aware of it and we need to have the same voice. What we seeing, which is different to a large extent from the initial first months, is the covid pandemic fatigue of citizens difficulty to adhere to measures, the difficulty to comply with quarantines, with contact tracing.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, And this is also seeing a lot of more misinformation and fake news. And this is creating even more public health problems in many of the member states. All our member states and. I don't think there is any exception have been forced to take measures which are painful to the citizens and painful to the economies, but we need to really have a common voice in our communication to ensure that citizens understand that until we have a safe and effective vaccine and there is some good news coming out of that area.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Stella KYRIAKIDES, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, But we are not there yet. Until we have that, the only way forward is for them to follow the measures. So I would ask you in all your areas and all the member states to have this common voice because citizens expect from us clear and coherent messages they expect, give us a message of hope that we will deal with this together. They expect from us a message for the future. Out of this, we will have a stronger European Health Union. Thank you. .