PHSSR European Union Investing in Health 2025

23 Investing in Health for a Competitive, Secure, and Resilient Europe: A Strategic Call to Action The Partnership for Health System Sustainability and Resiliencecomplementing the Union Civil Protection Mechanism.104 Established in 2021, HERA is leading industrial, research, and innovation efforts to address future cross-border health threats, including through HERA Invest with R&D support for medical countermeasures.105 Sustaining sufficient financing for EU health agencies will ensure continued health protection for all EU citizens, enhancing the EU’s timely capacity to rapidly respond to health crises and ensuring access to affordable medicines and technologies. At the OECD Health Ministerial Meeting in early 2024, Health Ministers from over 40 OECD and partner countries adopted a Declaration on Building Better Policies for More Resilient Health Systems, emphasising the need to improve the resilience of our health systems to future health shocks by making necessary investments and ensuring their sustainable financing. As ageing populations and rising rates of NCDs drive demand for healthcare against a backdrop of continued geopolitical uncertainty, the case to invest in resilient health systems remains undeniable. Recommendations � Ensure health continues to be a major priority in the next MFF, with a dedicated, ring-fenced fund and a verifiable target for financing for health, which are aligned to a coherent EU health investment strategy and retain funding levels for health at least at the current allocations provided across different funding programmes. � Maintain sufficient funding for the operational capacity of EU health agencies, including the EMA, the ECDC, and HERA, to ensure continued health protection for all EU citizens and enhance the EU’s capacity to respond to health crises. � Integrate health systematically with other EU priorities to improve EU multisector collaboration in supporting health systems, promoting synergies with policy areas such as defence, competitiveness, digital transformation, and the green transition. � Safeguard EU health investments through multiyear budget indexation, protecting health investments from erosion due to emerging fiscal pressures. 2.B PILLAR B: ENSURING EFFECTIVE FUND GOVERNANCE, IMPLEMENTATION, AND IMPACT 2.B.1 Implement governance mechanisms to ensure that EU investments effectively contribute to the development of resilient, sustainable, and high-performing health systems Coherent governance of EU health investments is essential for the effective and efficient implementation of health system transformation. Although the MFF is delivered under fixed-term funding periods, longer-term planning is necessary for these funds to deliver the desired benefits to population health and health system sustainability. From the EU perspective, more streamlined health investments could maximise the impact of finite budgetary resources amidst shifting priorities and increasing demands for healthcare. Achieving efficiency gains by minimising inefficient and duplicative spending and by leveraging the benefits of digital transformation has been identified as an essential lever for ensuring the sustainability and resilience of EU health systems.106 Under mounting fiscal pressures, the European Commission has emphasised its focus on maximising the impact of spending under the next MFF.107 Sustaining resilient health systems requires medium- to long-term financial commitments supported by long-term plans that link expenditure allocations to policy priorities.108 Even at the level of individual projects, a lack of long-term planning and coordination can lead to challenges in implementing health system transformation (see ‘Case study: Primary healthcare reforms in