Strategie voor medische tegenmaatregelen

- calls on the Commission to bear in mind that the management of health systems – and in particular hospitals – is decentralised in the majority of Member States and regrets that the communication does not include explicit references to the role of the regional and local level; calls for regional and local authorities to be fully involved in planning and implementing health preparedness measures;

- insists that representatives of the European Committee of the Regions be involved in the work of the groups, committees and task forces set up at EU level to deal with public health emergencies, in particular the Advisory Committee on Public Health Emergencies;

- stresses that aggregating European demand creates a more stable and predictable market, incentivising industrial development including for niche countermeasures and supports the Joint Procurement Agreement, signed by 39 countries, which allows economies of scale to purchase essential supplies for more than half a billion Europeans, inside and outside the EU;

- calls on the Commission and the Member States to fully integrate the regions in the development of threat-specific medical countermeasures preparedness roadmaps planned for 2026;

- calls on the Member States and their regions to firmly integrate the health preparedness dimension in their national and regional partnership plans to enable investments and reforms in all areas of preparedness and crisis management.