New EU Initiative on Health Security for the EU neighbours

News story

A five-year agreement to implement a new EU Initiative on Health Security to enhance public health preparedness and response capacities of the European Union enlargement and the European Neighbourhood Policy partner countries has been signed between ECDC and the European Commission. The total funding will be 9 million euros.

On 27 March 2020, the European Commission Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) and ECDC signed an agreement for the implementation of the new EU Initiative on Health Security. This will enable tailor-made support to strengthen public health systems’ preparedness and response capacities of the European Union candidate and potential candidate and the European Neighbourhood Policy partner countries, and improve health security in the European neighbourhood.

The aim of this new EU Initiative on Health Security is to set up a regional workforce for the prevention and control of challenges posed by communicable diseases and enhance regional cooperation to tackle serious cross-border health threats.

The EU Initiative on Health Security will address preconditions for strong public health systems and will focus on capacity building in field epidemiology, strengthening partner countries’ capacities to monitor, detect, assess and respond to serious cross-border threats to health from communicable diseases. This new initiative will also contribute to the establishment of sustainable networks of highly skilled experts across the countries to address the health threats and risks in an efficient and timely manner.

 

More information:

Current EU candidate countries are: Albania, Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. 

Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo* are potential candidates.

*This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/99 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is mainly a bilateral policy between the EU and each partner country and governs the EU's relations with its eastern and southern neighbours: Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, Palestine*, Tunisia, Ukraine.

* This designation shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of the Member States on this issue.

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