What is your future of Europe?

The State of the European Union (#SOTEU), is the annual speech delivered by the President of the European Commission, before the Members of the European Parliament. This year’s speech comes in times of change, when the future of Europe is discussed. EPF sees health as a central part of European policies and wants to keep health as a priority of the EU.

The speech will be delivered tomorrow (Wednesday 13 September) at 9.00 am CET. We encourage all our members to actively show their support and voice their proposals about the #FutureofEurope during the speech by mentioning the importance of #EU4Health.

Background – where do we stand?

On 1 March, the European Commission presented its White paper on the future of Europe. This White paper offers five scenarios for how the Union could evolve; they range from a reduction of the European Union to a mere open market to a fully integrated union. Following this, a series of five reflection papers were published to open the discussion on the issues that will most affect our future.

EPF is very concerned about limiting the EU to an economic cooperation as this would have major consequences on the area of health, which would subsequently be limited or even excluded from EU policies. With this in mind, EPF wrote to President Juncker along with the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), and a coalition of organisations to express their concerns in a letter. Until now, this letter has been endorsed by 196 organisations. To endorse this letter, please sign this petition.

The debate on the future of Europe is open to participation of organisations and citizens. In his reaction to the abovementioned letter, Commissioner Andriukaitis highlighted the possibility of participating in this debate by providing our feedback on the dedicated website. EPF has already contributed to this consultation and invites you to do the same.