5 Champion MEPs

With the EPF campaign on Access to Healthcare, we want to have a real and meaningful impact on the EU health policy. To make our voice louder, we have identified five high-level champions who will be helping us to raise awareness about the barriers that patients face in accessing healthcare and to place universal health coverage at the centre of the policy debate.

The five champion MEPs represent various countries and different political groups and areas of expertise, ensuring that our campaign’s message is widely spread. By accepting to be the public figures of our campaign, they bring a strong and decisive political support to our work and activities!

Let’s meet the #Access2030 Champions!

• MEP Miriam Dalli (S&D, Malta) is leading the work on ending discrimination and stigma that patients are facing in healthcare. She is a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) of the European Parliament and has focused her work on public health. She is very committed to vulnerable groups’ rights, especially LGBTI persons. Her involvement is key to advance on the topic.
• MEP Kateřina Konečná (GUE/NGL, Czech Republic) is a member of the ENVI Committee and also stands as co-chair of the MEP interest group on Patient Access to Healthcare. We count on her support to ensure that patients have access to a holistic range of health and social services and to guarantee that all dimensions of care are tackled. 
• An MEP strongly committed to patients’ concerns –  as shown during the EPF Patient Empowerment Campaign– MEP Andrey Kovatchev (EPP, Bulgaria) champions the dimension of affordability of care. He will work to encourage Member States to improve the affordability of healthcare products and services. His position as Co-Chair of the MEP’s Interest Group on Access will be of a precious help to voice our claim for a healthcare system affordable to all EU patients.
• MEP Sirpa Pietikäinen (EPP, Finland) will campaign for sustainable investment on health.  Her role as a member of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee and her long history of involvement in patients-related dossiers put her in a particularly strategic position to call for smart and sustainable health budgets in Member States.
• Last, but not least, MEP Paul Rubig (EPP, Austria) is a member of the Committee on Budgets at the European Parliament and will be voicing our demands for quality of care across the EU. As a champion, hewill work to make sure that healthcare systems in Member States provide quality of care and respond to the needs of individual patients.

Each MEP will specifically focus on a particular area, but their common commitment is to make sure our campaign’s messages resonate within the European Parliament. Our Champions will provide input on policy recommendations and work for the endorsement of documents that promote action to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal on Health, calling for Universal Health Coverage for all by 2030.

Together we will work to make universal access a reality for all EU patients!

#Access2030