Skills shortages, closing divisive files: The Belgian EU presidency’s health agenda

The Belgians have a packed in-tray as they take over at the helm of the EU Council Presidency in January, as they aim to cover a broad array of health topics and close key files before the European elections take over the agenda in June.

With the EU elections just around the corner and many open health files to tackle, the Belgian presidency of the EU Council – which takes over from the Spanish on 1 January – has its work cut out.

High on the agenda is the challenges facing Europe’s health workers – currently 8.5% of the total EU labour force – said Bjorn Gens, health attaché at the Permanent Representation of Belgium to the EU, speaking at a European Policy Centre (EPC) presentation on Tuesday (19 December).

As Europe’s population ages and the burden of chronic conditions grows, so does the demand for healthcare. However, as it stands, every single EU country lacks health workers, as the European Commission’s State of Health in the EU report from 15 December underlined. The problem is made worse by a mismatch of skills and uneven distribution of the health workforce.

Solving the workforce shortages is a national competence, however, the Belgian presidency is keen to open the floor for discussions of how action can be supported at the EU level, particularly when it comes to addressing the skills mismatch.

“It will be the ambition of the Belgian presidency to aim for the development of a health workforce strategy and invite the European Commission to do this,” said Gens.

This could be by “opening a discussion” on the Professional Qualifications Directive and other pieces of legislation similarly addressing issues like skills and training.

If they succeed here, this would be one clear health priority for the new political mandate and College of Commissioners to work on.

“The biggest challenge now is to keep health high on the agenda,” Gens said.

Tricky work on divisive health files

Two particularly tricky health files remain open – the European Health Data Space (EHDS) and the revision of the EU pharmaceutical legislation.

The first interinstitutional negotiation – or trilogue – on the EHDS took place on 14 December. The Belgians are hoping for the parties to reach an agreement within the next few months and in good time before the election if the ambition of launching it in 2025 is to be realised.

One of the trickiest points to reach an agreement on in the EHDS will be the question of an opt-out clause for the secondary use of health data and data localisation, Gens and Enrique Terol, health counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Spain to the EU, said during the EPC event.

On the revision of the EU pharmaceutical legislation, the first issues to be tackled in the Council are the parts relating to medicine shortages and incentives. The latter is a particularly divisive topic.

“We want to have a real compromise among member states on those two very important policy priorities within the pharma package,” said Gens, adding that he believes it will be possible.

Medicine shortages will also be addressed elsewhere in continuation of the Commission’s communication on addressing medicine shortages in the EU from October. This includes strengthening the solidarity mechanism, looking into a stockpiling strategy for medicines, and the set-up of a Critical Medicines Alliance, bringing together the Commission, EU member states and stakeholders.

While the idea of a Critical Medicines Act was floated in a non-paper by 23 member states in the spring and was mentioned again during the Council meeting of health ministers (EPSCO) on 30 November, this does not appear to be specifically on the agenda for the next six months.

Recurring topics

Among the open files, the Belgian presidency also has in its in-tray the memo on non-communicable diseases, which will include an evaluation of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan from 2021 as well as two Council recommendations: one on vaccine-preventable cancers and one on smoke-free environments.

Then comes the continued work to ensure a solid health emergency framework.

Many steps have already been taken. This includes setting up the Health Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), strengthening the EU health agencies and taking legislative measures to ensure the EU can approach the next pandemic better.

The work the Belgian presidency aims to look at is whether we have the right tools and procedures in place, enough financial resources, solid response strategies, and proper intelligence frameworks in place to gather the right data. On top of that, they want to look into how the EU’s capacity to conduct large-scale clinical trials can be expanded.

Last but not least, the silent, but nevertheless increasingly critical, issue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) will stay on the agenda, continuing the work of the Swedish and Spanish presidencies.

“We cannot wait and see whether all the 2030 benchmarks will be reached or not,” Gens said.

“It’s time to already have a stocktaking exercise on the implementation of the governance and the European governance on AMR. We really want to open this discussion once again because we remain very concerned about this evolution,” he added.

According to the Belgian presidency’s programme, this also includes the implementation of policy measures to optimise the use of antibiotics as well as stimulating the development of new antibiotics. This is something also to be discussed as part of the revision of the pharma legislation.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]

Read more with Euractiv

Belgium assembles specialised team to take on sepsis

Following years of advocacy efforts, Belgium is mobilising a specialised team as part of a national action plan to combat sepsis, after a recent broadcast on Belgian TV on this life-threatening condition created waves in parliament, helping to push the national sepsis plan into action.