On Friday 22nd January, the European Commission hosted a webinar to present the new programme “EU4Health – A vision for a healthier European Union”. The provisional political agreement on EU4Health was reached by the European Parliament and Council last December. The new programme will have a dedicated budget of €5.1 billion and will focus on:
- Making health systems more resilient to deal with cross-border health threats like COVID-19 and improving crisis management capacity;
- Making the European Health Union a reality by investing in cancer care, better pandemic preparedness, availability of medicines and innovation;
- Boosting digital health and disease prevention.
The first years of the programme will focus on C-19 crisis management, recovery/resilience as well as pandemic preparedness and response, more specifically:
1. protecting people in the EU from serious cross-border health threats and improving crisis management capacity;
2. making medicine, medical devices and other crisis relevant products available and affordable, and supporting innovation;
3. strengthening health systems and the health care workforce, including investment in public health.
20% of the EU4Health budget will support health promotion and disease prevention, namely the fight against physical inactivity, which is one of the principal missions of EuropeActive. Every year, more than half of the total mortality rate in Europe is attributed to unhealthy diets, tobacco use, the harmful use of alcohol and physical inactivity.