Major breakthroughs in the past five years / Further progress desperately needed after the election

“We achieved a major breakthrough in European Health Policy during the last mandate. This was not only due to COVID, already before the pandemic started, the Commission accepted the idea of the EPP-group and created the Cancer Action Plan. This is so successful that representatives of other diseases want a copy-paste. We as EPP support an action plan for cardiovascular diseases as well as for diseases like Parkinson and Alzheimer”, said Peter Liese, health policy spokesperson of the biggest parliamentary group (EPP Christian Democrats), after the publication of Commission communication through Vice President Margaritis Schinas.

“More action of the European Union in the health area is necessary. The most urgent thing is a change of the Medical Device Regulation to keep the safety level but reduce bureaucracy and a common action against shortage of medicine. The problem of shortage of medicine has not been created by the European Union but by the member states. However, Europe must help with the solution. I am very happy that the Commission already published an action plan and coordinates the action of the authorities responsible for procurement.”