The new Chair of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee (ENVI), Antonio Decaro MEP (Italy, S&D), issued harsh criticism of the cuts to EU health funding agreed by the European Council in February.

In a letter to the Chair of the Parliament’s Budget Committee, Johan Van Overtveldt MEP (Belgium, ECR), concerning the general EU budget for 2025, Decaro “deplored” the cuts made by the Council to health and environmental programmes.

Decaro writes that the committee “strongly regrets” the €1 billion cut to the EU4Health programme for the 2025-2027 period, which would amount to €189 million in 2025. The Parliament suggests that the EU’s Flexibility Instrument, which amounts to €9.2 billion for the entire 2021-2027 period, could be mobilised to cover the gap in funding.

The Parliament is also calling for a reversal in cuts to the Horizon Health Cluster, which MEPs say was severely overstretched by the pandemic. The health cluster budget supports research into developing capabilities to tackle emerging, re-emerging, neglected and rare diseases.

The MEPs propose that the Single Margin Instrument, which uses the difference between actual payment commitments and the EU’s budgetary ceilings, could cover these funding gaps.

The main amendments concerning health funding were supported by most of the EU lawmakers from the European People’s Party (EPP), the Social Democrats (S&D), Renew and the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA).

“We shared the rapporteur’s concerns about the significant cuts,” said Alexandr Vondra MEP (Czechia, ECR), the coordinator of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group. “However, the cuts are the result of difficult decisions made by the European Council, which relocated more than 10 billion to support Ukraine.”

Peter Leise MEP (German, EPP), the coordinator for the EPP group, said that the health programmes have had a significant impact and highlighted that the cuts would hinder HERA’s ability to support important actions like the fight against antimicrobial resistance, “this may kill Europeans.”

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