EPF welcomes SANT opinion but remains concerned about public health in next MFF

The European Patients’ Forum (EPF) welcomes the opinion adopted today by the European Parliament’s SANT Committee on the proposed European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), notably its strong recognition that public health objectives and activities must be included within the ECF but warns of the real risk of public health disappearing from the EU agenda in the next MFF.

In particular, the SANT Committee rightly underlined the importance of ensuring EU support for key public health priorities within the ECF, including equitable access to medicines, prevention, health literacy, support for civil society organisations working in health, patient rights, patient safety. It also called for a strong dedicated funding for public health activities. EPF strongly welcomes these clear political messages and now calls on the ITRE Committee, which leads on the file, to fully reflect these priorities in its final position. This is not a technical discussion. It is a political choice about whether public health will continue to exist as a meaningful European priority after 2027. The risk is real. 

Under the European Commission’s proposal for the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), published in July 2025, the standalone EU4Health programme no longer exists. Instead, the programme is being absorbed into the ECF without a dedicated funding envelope. In practice, this means that public health would have to compete every year against other priorities, including biotechnology, agriculture and the bioeconomy, with no guarantees on the level of future investment in health. EPF has warned since the publication of the proposal that this approach risks progressively erasing public health from the EU political agenda despite the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The SANT opinion, together with the European Parliament’s interim report on the MFF adopted last week in Strasbourg, clearly recognises this danger and calls for stronger safeguards to ensure that health remains fully integrated within the future EU budget architecture, in particular within the ECF. But if Member States refuse to recreate a dedicated public health programme in the upcoming months, and if the ITRE Committee fails to take into account the SANT position, one fundamental question remains: Where will public health stand in the next MFF? At the moment, the answer risks being nowhere. 

For EPF, competitiveness cannot be reduced to industrial performance alone. A truly competitive Europe requires healthy populations, resilient healthcare systems, informed patients, strong patient organisations, and sustained investment in prevention and public health. Innovation has limited value if patients cannot access new treatments, if health inequalities continue to widen, or if health literacy and patient empowerment are neglected. Public health should not become a casualty of a narrow understanding of competitiveness. 

EPF therefore reiterates that a standalone public health programme remains the best solution for the 2028–2034 MFF. However, at a minimum, public health within the ECF must be protected through a clearly ring-fenced and dedicated budget, accompanied by strong governance guarantees ensuring that public health objectives are fully integrated across all relevant activities. 

EPF now calls on Member States and the ITRE Committee to take into account the lessons of COVID-19 and ensure that Europe does not make the mistake of downgrading public health at the very moment patients expect the Union to protect them the most.