On 11 February, the European Commission presented its annual Work Programme for 2025, setting the legislative agenda for the year ahead. This is the first Work Programme under the new Commission, shaped by the political landscape following the last EU elections in June 2024.
As expected, the 2025 agenda reflects shifting political priorities. The focus is clear: EU competitiveness, regulatory market simplification, defence and migration. These priorities align with broader geopolitical and economic challenges, but they also signal a retreat from prevention-focused health policies, which were a cornerstone of the first Von der Leyen Commission’s agenda priorities, namely the EU Green Deal, the European Health Union and Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan.
Public health policy: is prevention no longer a priority for the EU?
For the EFA patient community, the 2025 Work Programme presents a mixed picture. Some initiatives that have started to take shape this year could lead to long-awaited progress for the EU and its neighboring countries in the region:
- The Critical Medicines Act and the EU Stockpiling Strategy. This would be new EU laws aiming to strengthen Europe’s ability to respond to medicine shortages and should help ensure patient access to essential treatments, by incentivising and securing production and supply of critical medicines for the EU Member States. EFA is member of the European Commission Critical Medicines Alliance informing this fiture law, since its launch in 2024.
- The Evaluation of the EU Framework on Medical Devices and In vitro Medical Devices. This exercise will help in assessing what has been the uptake of the new regulation that entered into force in 2021 with the aim of improving patient safety. If the regulation is set to review, it can be an opportunity to address regulatory gaps in medical technologies, especially in drug-device combinations,
- The continued negotiation on the EU Pharmaceutical Package. While this process started in 2020, the current negotiations are decisive on the final shape of the regulations, and we hope it will improve access to medicines and enhance innovation towards patients' unmet needs.
The upcoming months will be crucial in defining patients’ access to treatments and addressing critical gaps in Europe’s health systems. However, the Commission marks a clear shift away from public health and disease prevention as a political priority, in contrast to the previous mandate. Tackling the access, social and environmental determinants of disease is far less prominent in the new plan as actions addressing chronic diseases are absent from the Commission’s agenda, including specific work on tobacco and vaping, indoor air quality and food labelling policies.
A kick-off year for the EU budget for health
2025 marks the start of negotiations for the next Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF) for the years 2027-2034. With the annual EU health budgets already declining, Europe must ensure that the lessons from COVID-19 are not forgotten, maintaining a strong commitment to reinforcing health policies, particularly in prevention.
EFA will work with its communities to call on the EU to strengthen the healthcare system with a focus on preparedness, while prioritising public health measures for allergy and respiratory patients, and ensure that their needs are addressed in the EU future policy decisions.
You can find the EC Work Programme and its Annexes here.