With the news cycle bringing ever-more dire reports, there is a tendency, for political and administrative leaders alike, to look at history and to emulate past experiences.
I believe that, precisely because of the unprecedented nature of this crisis, we need to look strongly and resolutely towards the future.
We need to debate and decide how to build the future in ways that markedly differ from the past in order to avoid crises like the one we currently struggle with.
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This current crisis should be a watershed moment, leading to the changing of many of the underlying assumptions on which our politics and our economics are based.
While some leaders try to chart the way out of the crisis by quoting Winston Churchill, I believe that it is just as wise to plan for the post-crisis world.
We should follow one of the principles laid out in the Beveridge Report, which, during the Second World War, mapped the future of the post-war social state: “A revolutionary moment in the world’s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching”.
“This current crisis should be a watershed moment, leading to the changing of many of the underlying assumptions on which our politics and our economics are based”
I do not believe we are at war. Seeing the number of victims, we would have already lost important battles. This is a rescue mission; one for which the European Union is unprepared and that European leaders did not want to take into consideration.
f we fail now, it will not just be a political failure, it will be a global tragedy and one that can destroy our common future at European level.
The crisis we currently face should enable us to thoroughly analyse the manner how the European project needs to proceed and the way in which our health and social services should function in future.
The criticism levelled in this context at the EU might seem, at least initially, fully justified. The Union has played second fiddle to State decisions, which, in some cases seemed to be rather short-sighted or nationally focused, rather than for the long-term common good.
I do not believe that reverting to national, limited economies and social systems is the solution, but I strongly believe that more powerful institutional bonds and deeper manifestations of European solidarity are needed.
Inequality in healthcare, both at national and European levels, has long been ignored. Moreover, the years of severe austerity in the aftermath of the previous economic crisis have had a significant impact on the quality of healthcare that European citizens receive.
This impact was particularly profound in poorer European countries, where health systems were weaker to begin with.
“This is a rescue mission; one for which the European Union is unprepared and that European leaders did not want to take into consideration. If we fail now, it will not just be a political failure, it will be a global tragedy and one that can destroy our common future at European level”
This current crisis has highlighted that these inequalities, in a time of pandemic, have become the next main systemic weakness.
Combating the public health challenges of the future means abandoning the idea that money, nationality or status can insulate us from danger.
Only when we can provide the best healthcare for the weakest, most isolated and most discriminated members of our society can we truly build a much more resilient system.
This impacts healthcare, as well as society and the economy as a whole. One of the mechanisms for increasing not only the efficiency, but also the legitimacy and solidarity of our health systems is to enact a ‘European health guarantee’ and to extend its provisions to all European citizens.
Five years ago, I proposed an amendment to the EU budget that asked for the establishment of a European health guarantee’, aiming to push Member States to better integrate their healthcare systems and solutions and to help treat European patients in any EU country.
This is only one of the ways in which the EU should become more involved in health issues in order to support our citizens’ well-being.
Currently, the lack of cooperation and exchange of information has hurt us during the current Coronavirus crisis. The lack of any common European database on people who are sick or should be isolated has led to a rapid spread of the virus across Europe.
There is no way to stop something that you do not know is coming. The solution I proposed a couple of years ago was to create a European fund dedicated to healthcare, financed at EU level, to cover medical costs until the state of origin can reimburse them.
The European health guarantee could ensure that patients get the right treatment on time, that lives are saved and do not depend on the fortuitous solving of bureaucratic issues.
A European health guarantee would be a step in the right direction. Every European premature death averted is an investment in Europe’s future.
In the wake of this crisis, fast decisions and the pooling of common resources are increasingly necessary. We cannot treat the life and the health of European citizens as a commodity, subject to the impulses of the free market.
Human lives are our most precious resource, and the Coronavirus crisis is showing us that the well-being of Europe’s citizens depends largely on better health and social services and a higher degree of solidarity.