The Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) Committee voted on 24 February to adopt a report on the 2015 Annual Growth Survey (AGS). Despite receiving the opinion of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) Committee, which strongly urged the consideration of health as an important element of sustainable and inclusive growth, the final text of the ECON report overlooks the economic significance of health.
The report, drafted by Rapporteur MEP Dariusz Rosati (EPP, Poland), responds the Commission’s publication of the 2015 AGS, which provides an overview of the economic situation across the EU and outlines priorities for the coming year. These EU priorities are used to inform the national reform programmes (NRPs) and stability and convergence programmes (SCPs) of the member states, which are currently under development, as well as the final country specific recommendations (CSRs), to be issued in May.
It is important that the European Parliament’s response to the AGS highlights the role which the health sector and relevant policies plays in supporting both economic recovery and citizens’ wellbeing. Regrettably, the ECON report misses this essential point. The ECON committee largely ignored the recommendations from their ENVI colleagues, retaining just four of the 23 points suggested by the ENVI Committee, which focused on the internal energy market.
The report notes that “six years after the beginning of the financial crisis…the euro area is still facing record unemployment levels of almost 12%” but does not acknowledge the significant potential of the health sector to address this issue. The healthcare sector accounts for 8% of the total European workforce and for 10% of the EU’s GDP (Commission, 2012). Health sector jobs have increased continuously over recent years and the OECD estimates that demand for workers in the long-term care sector will at least double by 2050 (Eurofound, 2012; OECD, 2012). A 2012 European Vacancy Monitor report found that employment in the EU healthcare sector grew by almost 2% annually between 2008 and 2012 (EVM, 2012). There is thus huge potential within the health sector to increase employment within the EU.
The report recognises that “short-run pressures can lead to measures of a transitory nature” and underlines the need to “ensure that short and long-term policies reinforce one another” but overlooks the particular vulnerability of the health sector in this regard. Mounting evidence from Greece shows that short-term cuts to health expenditure, imposed as conditions of financial rescue packages, have disastrous results for health systems and individual wellbeing (Kentikelenis et al., 2011; McKee et al., 2012). The report stresses the need to accelerate structural reforms and calls on national governments to “safeguard and enhance the inclusiveness, sustainability and fairness of social protection, in particular for those most in need” but misses an opportunity to identify the importance of health system reforms which are evidence-based, invest in resilience, disease prevention and health promotion, and do not inadvertently worsen health outcomes (EPHA, 2013).
Finally, the report supports the call to boost investment and raises concern that “the investment level has fallen by EUR470 billion since the peak of the crisis” but makes no mention of the conclusions of the Commission’s Investing in Health document:
“Health is a value in itself. It is also a pre-condition for economic prosperity… Health expenditure is recognised as growth-friendly expenditure. Cost-effective and efficient health expenditure can increase the quantity and the productivity of labour by increasing healthy life expectancy… Investing in sustainable health systems combines innovative reforms aimed at improving cost-efficiency and reconciling fiscal consolidation targets with the continued provision of sufficient levels of public services.”
EPHA regrets the ECON Committee’s omission of health in its report and urges the Parliament to continue to fight for the greater inclusion of health considerations in the European Semester process.
The final text as adopted by the ECON Committee can be found here – this was adopted by the full European Parliament Plenary on 11 March 2015.
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