Public health should be recognised as a public good, whose provision, beyond the pandemic, requires a new European agency. Da Social Europe.
When in mid-May the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, presented a joint document on European medium-term recovery, most of the discussion focused on their recovery plan—and the opposition to it of the ‘frugal four’—overshadowing the part outlining a strategy towards European health ‘sovereignty’.
The EU4Health proposal indicates lines along which this European health sovereignty should be developed. First, it suggests boosting the capacity to produce affordable vaccines, co-ordinating and financing research at EU level while increasing bargaining power in the face of the pharmaceutical giants.
