EU long-term budget: Is health funding on the chopping block?

euronews (in English)

EU long-term budget: Is health funding on the chopping block?  As new priorities demand greater resources, the health sector risks significant cuts in the upcoming long-term EU budget.  READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/06/12/eu-long-term-budget-is-health-funding-on-the-chopping-block  Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages

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00:00Will health pay the price in the next EU long-term budget?

00:08With growing demands in areas like defence, concerns are mounting over whether health will be pushed aside.

00:15The European Commission is set to unveil its proposal for the next seven-year EU budget in July,

00:21but early rumours suggest that dedicated health funding could be merged with other programmes, or worse, eliminated entirely.

00:28The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a historic shift.

00:33For the first time, Member States agreed on a standalone 5.3 billion health fund known as EU for Health.

00:40Now many worry that this may have been a one-off.

00:44If we are not able to protect this, to have a ring-fence budget, a separate health programme within the budget,

00:49I'm afraid that this will all be diluted, that this will all be absorbed by some big other fund in the budget,

00:55and definitely will lose this focus on healthcare that we have now.

00:58Uncertainty is sparking wider concern in the health sector, ahead of the Commission's budget proposal.

01:05If we pull back from health investment, we're going to see more delays, we're going to see less access to innovation,

01:11we're going to see deterioration of health outcomes,

01:15and consequently, we're going to see a reduction in productivity, economic output.

01:22Health is an investment to be made, not a cost to be managed,

01:25and if we do so, we'll improve the health and the wealth of our countries.

01:31EU for Health has already supported key projects,

01:34including a 1.3 million initiative tackling Europe's nursing shortage

01:38by promoting the profession in countries facing the biggest gaps.

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