ECDC to get powers to recommend social distancing

Today, the EPP Group will vote to give the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) more tasks and more staff. To draw the lessons from the current COVID pandemic, the EPP Group wants the European Union to become a true Health Union. To this end, the ECDC must have more power to provide concrete help to Member States during pandemics and other health crises.

"We propose that in the future, the ECDC will not only monitor crises, but send experts, propose sanitary measures like social distancing, prepare long-term strategies and coordinate the exchange of health information between Member States. The ECDC must turn into a true EU Medical Expert Corps consisting of an ad hoc team of doctors, psychiatrists and nurses to help any Member State in need of help in case of health emergencies", explained Radan Kanev, the EPP Group MEP responsible for the plan, ahead of the vote today in the Environment Committee.

The EPP Group also wants to prevent situations like we have witnessed during the current pandemic, where, due to the numerous COVID-19 infections, the treatments of other diseases have been postponed or even cancelled. "It mustn't happen again in the European Union that in order to save patients suffering from COVID-19, we lose patients suffering from cancer. We must do everything possible at the EU level to save both", said Peter Liese MEP, the EPP Group's Spokesman for Health.