MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on EU coordinated action to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences

B9‑0145/2020

European Parliament resolution on EU coordinated action to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences

(2020/2616(RSP))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to Article 6(a) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU),

– having regard to all the initiatives proposed so far by the EU institutions in response to the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),

– having regard to the statements by the Council and the Commission of 16 April 2020 on EU coordinated action to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences,

– having regard to Rule 132(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas COVID-19 is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2); whereas the first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed in China in November 2019; whereas the virus has since spread rapidly around the globe;

B. whereas the Chinese Government was aware of the development of the new virus well before the World Health Organization (WHO) and the rest of the world were officially informed;

C. whereas more than 1.5 million people worldwide have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and more than 100 000 people have died as a result of being infected; whereas on 11 March 2020 the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic;

D. whereas the seriousness of COVID-19 lies not only in it causing high fatality rates among certain segments of the population, such as the elderly and people with underlying medical conditions, but also in overburdening the limited capacities of hospitals; whereas, however, there is still no accurate statistical or scientific data on the fatality rate of the virus with regard to certain age groups and the spread among the general population, leading to uncertainty as to the proper response to the virus; whereas COVID-19 can be spread when people are still asymptomatic, thereby making it possible that people unknowingly transmit the virus;

E. whereas it will take several months to develop and test a vaccine against COVID-19; whereas there is currently no treatment available;

F. whereas most Member States only started to implement serious measures aimed at limiting the spread of the outbreak in March 2020; whereas these measures include declaring states of emergency which have limited citizens’ basic rights; whereas the measures taken in most Member States are aimed at ‘flattening the curve’ through social distancing;

G. whereas the Commission’s first coordinated measures in response to the outbreak were only announced on 13 March, several weeks after the first cases were discovered in Europe;

H. whereas the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is the EU agency aimed at strengthening Europe’s defences against infectious diseases; whereas its main tasks are surveillance, epidemic intelligence, response, scientific advice, microbiology, preparedness, public health training, international relations, and health communication;

I. whereas the European External Action Service (EEAS) has been totally ineffective in handling the coronavirus crisis, even though it has substantial resources and representation offices in almost every country in the world;

J. whereas this global pandemic has significant implications for geopolitics, including political instability in new areas and the exacerbation of existing political instability, global recession and financial challenges, consequences linked to social and economic inequalities, direct consequences on the market of natural resources and a redefinition of the role of certain countries in their global supply chains;

K. whereas the supply problems in strategic sectors arising as a result of the crisis have highlighted the loss of sovereignty and the European industry’s heavy dependence on production in third countries, particularly China, especially in strategic sectors such as the automotive, pharmaceutical and electronics industries;

L. whereas the coronavirus crisis demonstrates the importance of European agricultural production and its capacity to respond to domestic demand; whereas, at the same time, certain imports from third countries are collapsing due to the reorganisation of world trade caused by this virus;

M. whereas law enforcement authorities, including prison staff, are playing a key role during the crisis and in enforcing the emergency measures, often without the adequate protective equipment necessary to fulfil their very delicate mission;

N. whereas the outbreak of COVID-19 is having a tremendous impact on our societies and on our economies, labour markets and social systems;

1. Expresses its sincerest condolences to all those who have lost loved ones as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak; expresses its gratitude to those essential services at the frontline in fighting the outbreak, including, but not limited to, medical staff, law enforcement, and those involved in food production and distribution;

2. Expresses its deep concern about the enormous number of COVID-19 infections, the rising number of patients with symptoms of COVID-19, and the ever-rising number of deaths caused by the pandemic; expresses particular concern about the situation in Spain and Italy, where the outbreak has hit the hardest, and is deeply worried about the situation in hospitals overwhelmed by the number of patients requiring immediate care; expresses its deepest admiration and its most heartfelt gratitude towards all healthcare providers;

3. Recalls that public healthcare and social security are not EU but Member State competences, reflecting each Member State’s priorities;

4. Regrets that, despite the development of a pandemic, most Member State governments have been utterly unprepared as shown by the lack of availability of physical protective gear, as well as a lack of any calculated approach to effectively counter the pandemic; notes that the Commission has been passively observing the arrival of the outbreak in the EU and has not been paying attention to the development of the situation into a dramatic health, social and economic crisis; is astonished by the fact that governments have either not been monitoring or not been interested in monitoring the crisis as it developed in China;

5. Recalls that the EU has the competence to carry out actions to support, coordinate or supplement the actions of the Member States to protect human health; notes that the Commission has utterly failed in taking any meaningful action to support the Member States with coordinating or supplementing the Member States’ actions; in the light of this, deplores the fact that the Commission has not been fulfilling the mandate it has been given by the Treaties; calls, therefore, for Member State sovereignty to be preserved, as the nation state is still best equipped to respond to threats to public health;

6. Requests a proper assessment of the role and functioning of the ECDC, in order to evaluate whether it has failed in its mission;

7. Welcomes the voluntary bilateral assistance that has been provided by certain Member States or private entities within Member States, such as taking in patients, providing protective gear, or deploying doctors;

8. Deplores the fact that there is a severe shortage of protective suits, face masks and disinfectants in almost all Member States; considers that this shortage could have been prevented if Member States and the Commission had been more proactive in responding to the outbreak; notes with concern that certain Member States have advised the general public against wearing face masks, which have been proven to decrease transmission in Eastern societies; considers that this disinformation is being spread because of the shortage of protective gear;

9. Takes notes of the Commission’s legislative proposal to postpone the implementation of the Regulation on medical devices (COM(2020)0144); calls on the Commission to assess by the end of the year whether this Regulation addresses the new challenges that have arisen from the COVID-19 crisis and, if appropriate, to draw up a legislative proposal for a revision;

10. Considers that the passivity of the Commission and the governments of most Member States at an early stage of the crisis has necessitated a much more brutal response to COVID-19; considers that an early closure of the EU’s external borders, or even systematic temperature checks at airports, could have rendered the closure of internal EU borders obsolete; deplores in particular the fact that one of the arguments against the closure of external borders has been that it would play into the hands of so-called right wing populists, a decision that has put thousands of lives of Member States’ citizens unnecessarily at risk of infection for ideological reasons and political instrumentalisation;

11. Considers that an early implementation of a test-and-trace strategy, as employed in South Korea, could have led to the identification of infections, isolating hotspots and thus minimising the impact of COVID-19; considers that a lack of such testing has necessitated lock-downs and shut-downs all over the EU;

12. Insists that, given the severity of the crisis, overcoming it must take priority over all other plans; calls for the EU to ensure that the Member States have sufficient financial means to without delay make the investments needed to provide support to SMEs and the public health sector; calls on the Commission to allow Member States to implement any necessary monetary and fiscal measures to support businesses, including by reducing regulatory pressures, for example by creating instruments to ease compliance where normal mechanisms would prove burdensome;

13. Calls on the European Council to re-align its political priorities, and on the Commission to radically scale back its pre-crisis regulatory ambition; considers that now is the time to place pragmatism first and to postpone new legislative initiatives envisaged in the Commission’s Work Programme;

14. Calls for a complete refocus of the priorities for the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework (MFF), taking into account the socio-economic impact of the pandemic in the medium to long term; calls for the budget envisaged for ‘climate mainstreaming’ to instead be mobilised for COVID-19-related measures;

15. Invites its Bureau, which is responsible for the establishment of Parliament’s annual budget, to draw up a strategy to transfer the institution’s savings arising from its lock-down to support Member States that have been hit especially hard by the COVID-19 outbreak;

16. Calls for the EU to immediately issue a moratorium on all EU actions with a focus on geographical areas and structures outside the EU, as well as any planned actions, with the exception of any such actions which directly strengthen the EU’s external borders and secure the level of rule of law and general protection of citizens within EU Member States; calls for EU funds earmarked for EU external action to be made available for measures aimed at protecting Member States’ citizens and the European way of life during and after the pandemic;

17. Deplores the fact that country-specific recommendations in the framework of the European Semester concerning public health have proven counterproductive with regard to the resilience of national healthcare systems in the event of a major health emergency;

18. Takes note of the decisions of the European Central Bank (ECB) and their consequences on financial markets; rejects any attempts to use the crisis to push for ever-closer integration in the euro area through debt mutualisation or conditionality mechanisms;

19. Recognises the benefits of the Commission communication ‘Temporary Framework for State aid measures to support the economy in the current COVID-19 outbreak’ (C(2020)1863), which allows Member States to preserve the continuity of economic activity during and after the COVID-19 outbreak; underlines the importance of continuing to ensure in the long term, for as long as it takes, this flexibility and additional instruments to enable all businesses to provide their goods and services without encountering unfair trade barriers within the EU and in non-EU markets as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak;

20. Asks for priority to be given to direct aid for the continuation of activity for SMEs, craftspeople, traders, self-employed people and farmers, who account for the vast majority of employment in European nations and provide most of the services that are essential to life in our regions;

21. Calls on the Member States to collect coherent national data on the impact and, in particular, the deadliness of the virus, to study and improve the comparability of the data, and to render it accessible for research and policy decisions; calls for an independent international investigation with a mandate to visit, inspect and study what actually happened in China; considers also that China must be held accountable for trying to disseminate false propaganda to shift the blame to another country for the virus outbreak in Wuhan;

22. Calls for the safeguard clauses in trade agreements to be activated in order to protect the agricultural and fisheries sectors; calls on the Commission to recognise short distribution channels as the most suitable for ensuring a secure food supply to consumers and guaranteeing viable incomes for farmers; calls for derogations allowing farmers to be helped;

23. Urges Member States to strengthen external border controls in order to limit international transport for the duration of the health crisis and to give priority to the transportation of foodstuffs, fuel, medicines, protective gear and medical equipment;

24. Invites the competent national authorities to strengthen market surveillance in order to prevent consumer harm and to share information on malpractice (misleading claims about the reason for price increases or scams linked to COVID-19);

25. Underlines that it is of the utmost importance to keep strategic sectors and the production of major strategic supplies, such as pharmaceuticals and medical devices, within the EU in order to reverse the current situation in which the largest part of the supply chain is delocalised and not under the control of – and readily available to – EU Member States;

26. Considers that globalised delivery chains have been stretched too long; warns that a continued disruption of delivery chains, for example due to lock-downs and shut-downs, constitutes a threat to the economy of EU Member States, which is essential to wealth, income and wellbeing; invites the Member States to consider supporting the relocation of strategic production, protect corporate capital against external takeover operations and shorten logistics chains;

27. Calls on the Member States to support the working parents who are keeping our health systems and other important services running and to help them find childcare solutions, by ensuring that if one parent is a healthcare professional, caregiver or member of the armed forces or the police, the other parent should be entitled to work from home or at least work part-time to take care of the children;

28. Is opposed to any proposal that would facilitate the early release of inmates to reduce the spread of the virus; stresses that while such measures would have an uncertain health outcome, they would undermine legal certainty, rule of law and the rights of victims of crime;

29. Invites all Member States to strengthen their border controls to prevent illegal immigration with a view to removing this further risk of spreading the virus across Europe; opposes any proposal that would facilitate the early release of asylum-seekers from closed asylum centres; calls for the EU to encourage all Member States to ensure safe collective and contained housing for all illegal third-country citizens currently within the EU, until such time that they can voluntarily or otherwise return to their countries of origin;

30. Urges Member States to increase their testing capabilities in order to collect more accurate data on the fatality rate of the virus;

31. Notes that the emergency measures that have been taken by governments are having a serious impact on the most basic rights granted by the democratic constitutions of those Member States; warns of the dangers of such limitations and, therefore, urges Member States to prepare a strategy for society to return to normal; calls for a timely end to involuntary lock-downs as soon as reasonably possible and appropriate;

32. Rejects the Commission proposal to demand data from telecom providers; urges Member States to ask for individual consent before apps which monitor movements, contacts and health data are put into use;

33. Calls on the EU to contribute to solving the crisis within its current institutional framework; rejects the call to pursue innovative institutional reforms of the EU, since the Member States, which are to provide the response to the crisis, are better equipped to effectively fight the crisis; stresses nonetheless the need for cooperation and the appropriateness of mutual assistance between Member States;

34. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the European Council, the Council and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.