The Commission’s legislative proposal to extend the mandate of the ECDC is expected on 11 November.

The European Chronic Disease Alliance recommends the extension of the mandate to chronic diseases, in alignment with the Parliament’s resolution on the “EU’s public health strategy post COVID-19” adopted in July 2020 and the conclusions of the independent external evaluation of the ECDC in 2019.

The evaluation highlighted that the “opportunities stemming from an extension of the mandate to the non-communicable diseases are related to the expected increased sustainability and efficiency of EU-level activities in these areas and the potential for link and synergies with ECDC’s communicable diseases related work, that could also encourage more integration at national level”. The COVID-19 crisis further amplifies how relevant this conclusion is.

There is a critical lack of comparable data and guidance to Member States in the area, responsibilities which ECDC is naturally well placed to take up notably due to its renown expertise, experience and pre-established networks amongst national public health authorities.

ECDA hopes that consideration is given to this recommendation in the context of the Council Working Party on Public Health meeting taking place on the 29th of October to discuss draft Council Conclusions on COVID-19 lessons learned in health; and while the Commission introduces a COVID-19 health response package.

Read the full paper here.

This paper is supported by MEPs Kateřina Konečná (Czechia, GUE/NGL) and Brando Benifei (Italy, S&D).