The European Commission launched on Thursday a health crisis body that will coordinate EU spending of almost 30 billion euros ($35.3 billion) to prepare for a future pandemic.
The new health emergency preparedness and response authority will assess potential health threats, promote research, ensure the availability of critical production and help build stockpiles.
The authority is partly designed to avoid a repeat of the ad hoc measures taken by individual EU countries at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of them inefficient, others coming at the expense of other EU members. European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas said both agencies had been strengthened, but that alone was not enough.
"HERA will be our main instrument to coordinate preparedness and, if needed, response... This is what we are missing today."
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