Devising a European flagship initiative for health

Key points

The EESC:

• calls for a European flagship initiative for health, based on the principles of universality, quality, accessibility, solidarity and inclusivity.
• has set out the strategic pillars of this roadmap which include the following actions
• establishing a European care and healthcare guarantee,
• implementing the integrated One Health approach,
• harnessing the potential of digitalisation and artificial intelligence (AI) to modernise health systems.
• upholding European financial instruments to support national health initiatives and funding.
• prioritising social and health investments,
• promoting an integrated scoreboard of socio-economic, health and environmental reforms, with a view to a strategy that goes beyond growth
• developing a targeted investment plan to strengthen capacity and promote care professions and healthcare workers
• undertaking collaborations between the EU and WHO/Europe to retain, attract and support care workers, including nursing staff
• improving health and safety at work
• implementing both an EU action plan and national plans on rare diseases Integrating health diplomacy as a soft power instrument[1] in the EU’s external policies.
• calls for a more institutionalised involvement of civil society in defining, evaluating and monitoring health priorities