Navigation path

Preparedness and response

Policy

The European Union policy comprises actions to better protect European citizens from a wide range of health threats that have impacts across national borders. The origin of these threats can be agents that cause communicable diseasespdf or other biological agents, chemical agents or threats of environmental origin including effects of climate change. 

EU Member States cannot act effectively alone. For this reason, the EU has established, in cooperation with the Member States, a number of mechanisms for a European-wide coordination on the response to serious cross-border threats to health in the following areas:

  • Preparedness
  • Risk assessment
  • Risk management
  • Risk communication
  • International cooperation

Protect citizens from health threats

The strategy on health security is about our society's vulnerability to major public health threats and about mitigating such threats. To set out the current EU policy framework in this area, the Commission has analysed how to deal with these threats (citizen's summarypdf(23 KB) Choose translations of the previous link български (bg) čeština (cs) dansk (da) Deutsch (de) eesti keel (et) ελληνικά (el) español (es) français (fr) italiano (it) latviešu valoda (lv) lietuvių kalba (lt) magyar (hu) Malti (mt) Nederlands (nl) polski (pl) português (pt) română (ro) slovenčina (sk) slovenščina (sl) suomi (fi) svenska (sv) ) and published a Commission Staff Working Document Health Security in the European Union and Internationallypdf(82 KB) and a Commission staff working document on lessons learnt from the H1N1 pandemic and on health security in the European Unionpdf(116 KB) Choose translations of the previous link български (bg) čeština (cs) dansk (da) Deutsch (de) eesti keel (et) ελληνικά (el) español (es) français (fr) italiano (it) latviešu valoda (lv) lietuvių kalba (lt) magyar (hu) Malti (mt) Nederlands (nl) polski (pl) português (pt) română (ro) slovenčina (sk) slovenščina (sl) suomi (fi) svenska (sv) .

Improved health security

The Commission has adopted a proposal for a "Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on serious cross-border threats to health" to better protect EU citizens against serious cross-border threats to health. This initiative seeks to improve preparedness across the EU and to strengthen the capacity to coordinate response to health emergencies.

The Lisbon Treatypdf introduced a new competence for the EU to take action to combat  serious cross-border health threats. Article 168 underlines the need for a high level of human health protection in all Union policies and activities. Union action can  complement national policies. The Commission may, in close contact with the Member States, take any useful initiative to promote coordination, for example through guidelines or the exchange of best practice.