Hojsik: Crisis Reveals Need for More Powerful EU Health Agencies

Hojsik: Crisis Reveals Need for More Powerful EU Health Agencies

Bratislava/Strasbourg, January 24 (TASR) – The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the need to respond faster and to grant stronger mandates to European health agencies, Slovak MEP Martin Hojsik stated on Monday.

“The coronavirus crisis has shown us that we’re ill-prepared for health crises, both as countries and as the EU,” said Hojsik.

“If we want to handle future crises better, we need a real health union, which is why I fully support bolstering the powers of the European Medicines Agency (EMA),” he added.

The future of the EU health-care sector and the European Health Union are also topics dealt with by the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), with four panels made up of EU citizens in session between September 2021-January 2022.

Following its most recent meeting, the third civic panel recommended extending the EMA’s powers with an eye towards ensuring equal quality of health care and proportionate costs across the EU.