First of all, I want to thank Minister Ankarberg Johansson for organising today's Council. I wish the Swedish Presidency every success in taking forward our many important health in the coming months.
We have addressed a number of important points, much of which focused on medicines.
Firstly, on medicines shortages, we have taken concerted action at EU level through the European Medicines Agency and its reinforced mandate to monitor and manage the shortages of key medicines we have experienced in the past months.
We must keep working together to make sure that critical medicines are available to EU health systems and citizens at all times.
The revised pharmaceutical legislation that we will present in two weeks will do just that - it will address the long-term issue of improving security of supply, which will help to mitigate shortages in the future.
We also held a debate on the new rules on fees and charges payable to the European Medicines Agency.
The pandemic showed us the importance of having a flexible and well-performing regulatory system.
The current fee system needs to be, simplified and made more transparent and predictable.
We will continue to support the Presidency to speedily conclude this file.
Both of these points are relevant to the upcoming reform of the pharmaceutical legislation.
I would describe our main objectives for this reform as the three As:
Availability: every citizen, no matter where they live in the EU, must have access to the medicines they need.
Accessibility: we want to support the EU pharmaceutical industry so that it can innovate, produce medicines in the EU and remain globally competitive.
Affordability: essential and innovative medicines must be also affordable for our citizens and health systems.
Ultimately, the proposal is going to be for the benefit of patients and citizens, but it also has to benefit the pharmaceutical industry and innovation. This is a balance that we are aiming to achieving through our proposal.
We also discussed medical devices.
Thanks to the support of the European Parliament and Member States, the extension of the rules on medical devices will be signed tomorrow.
We also had a discussion on the long-term consequences of the pandemic, namely Long COVID.
The pandemic is still with us.
17 million people across the EU have been affected by Long COVID in the last two years , and this number will continue to increase.
It is having a major impact on the quality of life of those it affects, our health systems and our economies.
As I informed Ministers today, we are planning to create a network of centres of expertise on the management and treatment of Long COVID.
This comes in addition to the EUR 110 million in financial support into research to understand the causes of long COVID and research for treatments.
Today we also discussed our international work and the Global Health Strategy, which is the external dimension of the European Health Union.
We are already working with the Presidency on Council Conclusions that endorse the Strategy's priorities.
Team Europe should continue being a driving force behind the negotiations on a pandemic agreement and the amendments to the International Health Regulations.
Finally, a word on COVID-19 vaccines.
Together with Ministers, we held an extensive discussion today on the state of play of negotiations to find solutions to better align vaccine supply with Member States' needs.
I fully understand the concerns around over-supply of vaccines in some Member States.
The important thing now is to continue working together, through the Steering Board, to find a common solution that benefits all Member States.
I would like to thank again Minister Ankarberg Johansson and her team for organising this Council today, and would like to wish them a successful Presidency
