4 takeaways from the Stella Kyriakides hearing in ENVI committee

A higher profile for EU health policy

You have to go back to the 1990s to find a European Commission President who gave the slightest of damns about health policy (Jacques Santer). That era of high-level support in the Commission begat the EMA and the Orphan Medicinal Products Regulation among other excellent developments for the health of citizens. Since then we have been lucky to get even crumbs from the top table. The confidence with which Ms. Kyriakides delivered her commitments demonstrated already that she has support from the top in trained healthcare professional Ursula von der Leyen. As Health Commissioner, Stella Kyriakides will have to use that support judiciously.

Health Commissioner or health campaigner?

The format of Parliament hearings does tend to bounce candidates into recognising the importance and promising action on every legitimate issue raised by MEPs to secure their support. Ms. Kyriakides outlined her impressive credentials as a cancer patient campaigner and vowed action on many ENVI committee priorities like pesticides, endocrine disruptors, AMR, access to medicines and cancer. A strong commitment to taking forward the HTA Regulation proposal, retaining mandatory measures for Member States, was offered to eager MEPs. One got the sense that Ms. Kyriakides went further than she needed to; having never really being under pressure in the hearing. One can suppose that was due to a combination of personal beliefs and briefing from Commission insiders who were the authors of those strategies. 

But was it wise to commit to continuing with Commission strategies that have not been successful? Being seen to be on the right side of the argument is not enough. All three EU institutions, not to mention stakeholders, need to find agreements in order to drive tangible change. 

Long-term thinking

Ms. Kyriakides mentioned several times that she wants to tackle health inequalities and access to treatment so that EU citizens can expect equal treatment. If there was any overarching theme of her health offering; this was it. An admirable aim but it does not recognize the reality of the EU Treaty and the disparity in economic status of EU Member States. That is not to say that progress isn’t possible but it must clearly be by evolution rather than revolution. Kyriakides could lay the foundations for a long term (decades) and step-wise EU project to contribute to good value, availability and equality of healthcare. Member States have to decide to be on this ride and the Commissioner will have to persuade them to get on and stay on through gradual acceleration. 

Responsibility

While there were some mentions of issues for which the EU is not responsible, there was no mention of medical devices and IVDs for which the Commissioner for DG SANTE will now be responsible. Many stakeholders and Member States worry that the Medical Devices Regulation is at risk of failing upon entry into application in May next year without decisive action being taken. Failure of the legislation could lead to the EU impacting patient access in a very much unwanted sense. This could be the first crisis of the term. Given Ms. Kyriakides’ experience as a Parliamentarian and in the Cypriot Ministry of Health, and her reputation as a peacemaker, she must get to grips and manage this legislation proactively even though it is not (currently) high profile. 

Steve Bridges

Bridges Consulting - [email protected]