The future of a healthy Europe conference (CoFoE) commences on the 20th-21st of April, with a focus on addressing health-related initiatives and discussing priorities outlined in the National Recovery and Resilience Plans.
To celebrate XVI European Patients’ Rights Day (EPRD), Active Citizenship Network (ACN) has taken the concept of a traditional big multi-stakeholder seminar and created an online, interactive conference that focuses on the decision-making process on health priorities to ensure a healthy Europe whilst remaining Covid safe.
The conference will occur on the 20th and 21st of April from 2:30 pm till 4:00 pm CEST and each day will have a dedicated emphasis on two important topics. The first day is dedicated to the presentation to the EU Institutions on the outputs of the themes that emerged from health-related initiatives organised in the framework of the Conference on the Future of Europe, and the second day focuses on analysing the actual level of citizen involvement by the Member States close to the approval by the European Commission of most of the NRRPs and their implementation at the national level.
As part of Health Europa’s continuing media partnership with ACN, we are excited to attend and report on the important discussions during the future of a healthy Europe conference.
Urgent priorities to be addressed
The sixteenth edition will aim at finding answers also to the questions from PAGs, following these preliminary actions:
- The recognition of the main themes that emerged from the health-related initiatives hosted by the official portal “FuturEU platform”;
- A European civic survey on the level of involvement of civic and patient associations in the definition of priorities in the health sector starting from those indicated in the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs).
Key stakeholders will set out to answer important questions from PAGs following the above initiatives, including:
- What was discussed in particular?
- Why did only a small percentage of the initiatives promoted within the CoFoE concern health issues?
- How to ensure that the priorities defined in the context of CoFoE will be incorporated into the implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs)?
- What is the level of involvement of citizens and patients’ associations in defining the implementation process of the priorities that have been identified in the health sector?
What is the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE)?
CoFoE provides a fantastic opportunity for European citizens to debate on challenges and priorities presented in Europe. The European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission are committed to listening to Europeans and following up, within their sphere of competencies, on the recommendations made by citizens on future developments.
The conference is expected to reach conclusions and provide guidance on the future of Europe by spring 2022. During this time, a series of consultations across the continent were made, aiming to collect ideas for EU reform from European citizens.
The event’s main objective is to collect ideas to fuel EU initiatives, exchange and discuss different experiences, best practices, and more effective solutions – from a civic point of view – to overcome the challenges for global health at this historic moment. It will allow the leaders of civic associations and patient advocacy groups to participate in an EU debate and keep them updated on the decision-making process on health priorities. It will ensure community leadership and the participation of society as a whole: involve all stakeholders, especially civil society, to achieve ambitions for a European health union.
