MEPs eye hefty EU budget increase for health

Members of the European Parliament are pushing for more than €20 billion in health funding in the next EU budget, significantly increasing the existing budget for health care projects.

The European Parliament’s health committee wants to draw a clear line between funding for public health policies, such as improving cancer care, and projects to boost industries, including the pharmaceutical and medical devices sectors. In addition, the lawmakers want funds designated for defense and digital purposes to also support health care programs.

Lawmakers have raised concerns about the European Commission’s proposal to consolidate multiple existing funds, including the health pot, EU4Health, into a single European Competitiveness Fund in its 2028–2034 budget. This fund is to finance innovation across the bloc.

Public health groups warn that projects not considered innovative, such as smoking-cessation campaigns to prevent cancer and cardiovascular disease, would struggle to secure funds designated to boost industry competitiveness in the region.

In response, the health committee is pushing to boost health funding and dedicate it solely to health projects. However, without the committee leading on the file, health MEPs have limited influence over their demands.

Radan Kanev, MEP for the European People’s Party, is the author of the committee’s draft opinion on health funding in the proposed competitiveness fund. “I hope these figures will not be frightening to our colleagues,” Kanev told POLITICO, referring to MEPs on other committees as well as national governments. “It is really needed … to show the benefits of scale for European health policy,” he said.

His report asks for a carve-out of €15.55 billion for health (from the €20.4 billion health-agriculture-bioeconomy pot of the competitiveness fund). From this, €5.5 billion would support industrial competitiveness in areas including pharma and medical devices, he said.

The other €10.05 billion would be reserved for health policies covered by the European Commission’s current health budget, EU4Health — around double its original pot.

The committee wants €2.5 billion from this pot to fund Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and €400 million for HERA Invest, a scheme that supports medical countermeasures against pandemic threats and antimicrobial resistance.

The idea is to draw a clear line between public health programs and industrial competitiveness and give health a major boost in funding, Kanev said.

In addition, the committee proposes €2 billion for digital health (from the €51.5 billion digital leadership pot of the competitiveness fund) and €5.2 billion for military health and health preparedness (from the €125.2 billion defense pot of the fund), according to draft amendments to the report, seen by POLITICO.

Going above and beyond

The existing EU4Health program originally had a budget of €5.3 billion over the seven years to 2027. Negotiated during the pandemic, MEPs had pushed for almost double this amount. Nonetheless, the final deal was the largest ever health budget and the first time Europe had set aside money purely for health projects.

MEP Radan Kanev is the author of a draft opinion on health funding in the proposed competitiveness fund. | Philippe Stirnweiss/EP

The Commission’s plan to now scrap EU4Health in the 2028–2034 budget has alarmed MEPs who work on the topic, as well as the health community.

“Health must remain a standalone programme with strong levels of dedicated funding to implement,” the European Alliance for Cardiovascular Health and the European Cancer Organization said in a joint statement this week.

Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Frank Vandenbroucke said axing a dedicated health fund indicated health wasn’t a serious priority for the EU in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kanev’s pitch would take EU health funding to new heights. He said that proper funding for health care through the European Competitiveness Fund could help ensure access to medicines in smaller European countries, such as his native Bulgaria. The fund could also help support Europe’s life sciences industries amid competitive pressure from China and the U.S. — but only if it’s combined with access to private capital, he said.

“The ECF, together with the Capital Markets Union, could be a powerful instrument. On its own, it will be more of a pilot project,” he said. Even his proposed €5.5 billion in spending to support industrial policy in health would be “peanuts” compared to what the industry invests.

Limited influence

But the health committee’s report will only have limited sway.

The committee is only providing an opinion on the competitiveness fund. Primary responsibility in the Parliament for scrutinizing the competitiveness fund lies with the industry and research committee, which published its first draft report prepared by the EPP’s Christian Ehler and Socialist & Democrat Dan Nica on April 21.

Ehler told POLITICO he supported dedicated funding for health but said there was no agreement yet on “absolute figures because we have realistically to see [what] the overall financial envelope will look like.”

He also said the health committee’s figures were based on a 10 percent boost to the proposed EU budget, as called for by MEPs. “We should be careful with promises at that point of the legislative procedures,” Ehler said.

EU leaders meeting in Cyprus will discuss on Friday what is traditionally a difficult topic — the size of the next EU budget — made even harder by the economic demands of two wars, the energy crisis and forthcoming Covid loan repayments. The Parliament is pushing for a quick agreement.