The EU’s absence in dealing with the crisis is too obvious
Article by AKEL MEP Giorgos Georgiou
28th April 2020
The coronavirus pandemic is claiming many lives in the EU, leaving behind a carnage of victims and appalling poverty. The pandemic has prevailed, given that from the very first day it found the EU to be ill and on its knees, as a result of the policies it itself has been pursuing.
Over the past decade, the Brussels directorate was repeatedly demanding that member states drastically cut public health spending and privatize the public health system. And that’s precisely what happened. With the successive neoliberal policies that have been imposed by the European Commission, the fundamental right to healthcare has become a commodity. Public hospitals have been left understaffed with severe shortages in equipment and consumables, while the labour rights of medical and paramedical staff have been relentlessly violated. As a result, the entire public health system has been bled dry.
With particular zeal, the devotees of neoliberalism in Cyprus, following the instructions issued by the Anastasiades-DISY government, imposed cuts amounting to 600 million euros from the health sector, dismantling public hospitals with our country ranking last among EU member states in the table in relation to expenditure on health care.
National governments are responsible for organizing and ensuring health care, but the EU has a responsibility to complement national policies, helping member states to achieve common goals for a higher level of health and quality health care for all. That is precisely why today the peoples and member states demand the support and solidarity in practice of the EU, so that they can confront the pandemic, as well as the effects of the policies that the EU itself has imposed on the public health system. Nevertheless, the EU continues unabated to still be absent.
What has been decided so far by the EU is lags far behind to what is need to confront the dramatic situation we are going through. Once again, fierce competitions and the economic interests of the powerful states and the monopolies have prevailed. While the EU has a multitude of mechanisms and instruments for the coordination of states that could have been made use of, unfortunately, to date we have not seen any substantial European action whatsoever on the health issue.
We therefore addressed the Commission in an urgent way, raising before it the responsibilities it must assume to protect public health systems. Furthermore, we requested a clear reply with regards the following logical questions that torment us all.
- What measures has the EU taken in recent years to provide to support public hospitals so that they will be able in a position to deal effectively with emergencies, such as the crisis we are experiencing today due to the pandemic?
- Why hasn’t a comprehensive strategy in the field of health still not been elaborated to confront the crisis in the short term (for example, with the immediate start of production of necessary equipment, medicines and other consumables within the EU, as well as the direct funding of public hospitals etc.), but also for the long-term handling of the health sector after the end of the coronavirus pandemic?
- What interventions have been made by the Commission towards the member states so that substantial assistance and support in the field of public health is provided, particularly to those countries that have been suffering the most from the pandemic?
The EU has a duty to act humanely and demonstrate in practice solidarity so that the fundamental right to public health care for all people without exception is safeguarded. The EU’s deafening absence from the struggle the peoples are waging on a daily basis can no longer be tolerated.
