BRUSSELS, Belgium – During major energy blackouts, natural disasters, conflicts or pandemics, access to essential goods – such as food, water, oil, fuel and medicines – is crucial. The Commission has put forward two strategies designed to improve this access during crises: an EU stockpiling strategy and a medical countermeasures strategy.
The stockpiling strategy becomes the EU’s first comprehensive approach to stockpiling. Key actions in the strategy include:
- Establishing an EU stockpiling network with EU countries to ensure collaboration and coordination;
- Identifying stock gaps and duplications;
- Expanding EU-level stockpiles;
- Enhancing transport and logistics for rapid crisis response;
- Promoting civil-military, public-private, and international partnerships.
Access to lifesaving medical tools in times of emergency is just as important. The medical countermeasures strategy seeks to accelerate their development, production, deployment, and accessibility, with actions including:
- Advancing flu vaccines, antibiotics for antimicrobial resistance, antivirals, and improving access to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear countermeasures;
- Boosting intelligence and surveillance;
- Accelerating innovation;
- Securing scalable production;
- Improving medicine access and deployment;
- Strengthening global cooperation and cross-sector collaboration.
These two proposals are part of the preparedness union strategy that aims to enhance the EU’s ability to prevent and respond to emerging threats. It comes as the EU is facing increasingly complex crises and challenges, from growing geopolitical tensions, to cybersecurity threats, to climate change and increasing natural disasters.