Dear UEHP members,

I am writing to inform you about two important projects of the European Commission:

1) The European Commission began to lay out precisely what it would do with more power over health policy, by publishing yesterday the Factsheet "A European Health Union: tackling health crises together - Coronavirus impact and response". The Commission is proposing to:

• declare emergency situations at EU-level to ensure EU measures
• take risk management decisions at EU level
• harmonise EU, national and regional preparedness plans
• regularly audit and stress-test preparedness plans
• monitor supply of medicines and medical devices and mitigate shortages.

The Factsheet is available at the following link in 23 languages:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/
promoting-our-european-way-life/european-health-union_en

2) The European Commission and the German Presidency of the Council of the EU underlined importance of the European Health Data Space: yesterday, at the virtual High-Level Conference "Digital Health 2020 - EU on the Move", the Commission and Germany's Presidency of the Council of the EU announced their intention to work closely together on a secure and patient-oriented use of health data for Europe, and EU-wide collaboration in this area, through a European Health Data Space for better healthcare, better research and better health policy making.

As first steps, the following activities starting in 2021 will pave the way for better data-driven health care in Europe:

• The Commission proposes a European Health Data Space in 2021;
• A Joint Action with 22 Member States to propose options on governance, infrastructure, data quality and data solidarity and empowering citizens with regards to secondary health data use in the EU;
• Investments to support the European Health Data Space under the EU4Health programme, as well as common data spaces and digital health related innovation under Horizon Europe and the Digital Europe programmes;
• Engagement with relevant actors to develop targeted Codes of Conduct for secondary health data use;
• A pilot project, to demonstrate the feasibility of cross border analysis for healthcare improvement, regulation and innovation;
• Other EU funding opportunities for digital transformation of health and care will be available for Member States as of 2021 under Recovery and Resilience Facility, European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund+, InvestEU.

More at:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/
detail/en/IP_20_2049