Liberal response to Commission’s lessons learned from COVID-19

On 15 June, the European Commission presented an early communication on the lessons learned from the pandemic. The communication includes 10 lessons and recommendations to make Europe stronger and continue to lead on the global health scale. This means an annual State of Preparedness Report to monitor the situation closely, the appointment of a European Chief Epidemiologist to facilitate policy decisions and a global surveillance system to detect health risks faster using comparable data.

Next to this, the Commission wants the European Health Union to be adopted before the end of the year, whereas the EU Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) should be operational by early 2022 and the Health Important Project of Common European Interest as soon as possible. An EU platform for multi-centre clinical trials should make clinical research faster, broader and more effective.

Europe’s liberals believe that the COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity for a new future for Europe that guarantees our safety, safeguards our liberties and freedoms, and offers opportunity and prosperity for our citizens.

We welcome this proposal and are ready to cooperate. However, we call the Commission to keep the following proposals in mind:

The strengthening of the EU health system
A greater EU coordinating role for tackling healthcare emergencies.
Responsible and smart spendingof the national and EU temporary recovery funds to re-start the economy and boost jobs.
The EU to apply the principle of conditionality to ensure the respect of rule of law.
More free trade and diversifying supply chains will help Europe’s recovery and resilience.
The restore fundamental rights and freedoms mainly the four freedoms of the European single market – free movement of goods, capital, services and people.
Investments in citizens, businesses and infrastructure

ALDE Party members and delegates adopted key resolutions at the ALDE Party eCongress 2021 and set up clear policy plan for the post COVID-19 world. All new adopted resolutions are available here under the different categories.