Richard Boyd Barrett condemns EU for Health cut to €1.7bn

Teacher, you mentioned the stimulus and the discussions in Europe about the need for it, the package that's been just agreed. I referred to something earlier, which I really find quite shocking, beggar's belief to be honest, is that the EU for Health programme, which was a 9.4 billion euro programme, to create strategic medical stockpiles, a pan-EU medical response force, strengthen public health systems, improve warning systems for epidemics, and generally boost and increase healthcare capacity in response to COVID-19, that one of the outcomes of the discussions, which were sort of trumpeting as a success, was that that fund is being cut from 9.4 billion to 1.7 billion. Now, is that true? Because I just find that absolutely unbelievable. And it's indicative of how all of the concern about the health dimension of the COVID-19 crisis has just dropped off the agenda, and it's back to business now. And I think that is reflected, and will be reflected, in the lack of focus on our health services in your own stimulus. But it seems to start at the top in Europe, I don't know, presumably with austerity hawks. Were you aware of this cut? Did you argue against it? I mean, it's just shocking when we should be massively increasing support and investment in public health services, that the original plan for 9.4 billion was reduced to 1.7 billion. So, could you confirm, is that true, what you said about it, and what this reflects in terms of priorities? There is an existing health programme within the multi-annual financial framework. OK, there's two dimensions to this. The multi-annual financial framework was a seven-year budget for the European Union. And alongside of that, then, you had Next Generation Europe Recovery Fund. I'm going into the summit. The Commission's proposal was a 750 billion package. The Commission and the President of the Council, along with a number of Member States, including ours, and I would have been a very strong advocate of this, wanted the proportion to be more grants than loans. And going in, it was about 500 billion in grants, and the remainder in loans. The frugal four, as they're called, other countries, disagreed vehemently in relation to the size of the package, 1.8 trillion when you combine the two, and in relation to the balance and the ratio between grants and loans. So, the entire dynamic of the Council was trying to resist efforts to cut the grant dimension, which had been proposed by the Commission. So, the fund was not in any existing budget. The fund was something that hadn't been agreed, but was to include significant additional amounts, including the health. And you're correct in terms of what happened to health, which I would have argued trenchantly in terms of the need to preserve the grants. We fought for the retention, we wanted the maximum amount of grants, because I made a point, there's no point in piling debt upon debt on Member States who are in difficulty as a result of COVID-19. That was my absolutely unequivocal position. I said Ireland historically had benefited from cohesion funding, had benefited from solidarity in Europe, when you compare where we were in the 70s to where we are today. But equally, Ireland is an exporting country. If Europe recovers significantly, we will do well. That's the overarching kind of theme I approached this with, whilst also protecting our core budgets and common agricultural policy, which on current is retained, which is an extraordinary achievement in itself. And the issue between constant versus current is a fair point, but there's no way that people can understate the significance, given UK's exit and the resources that went with the UK, and the retention of where the common agricultural policy is now, plus the Brexit Special Reserve Fund of 5 billion, which Ireland and others obviously are in the front line in terms of being negatively impacted by Brexit. But so the real battle was to try and maintain the level of the overall package so that Europe would respond at scale. So what you're getting is all those projected amounts that were put into the next generation fund, which had never been agreed, and were still there to be debated, in order to get an agreement, which I think was important, between those countries who were net contributors, but who, in my view, were, they were clearly, not my view, they were, it was public knowledge, vehemently against the grants at all. They had started out with a zero grant position. Thank you, Thie Shire. And we've ended up around the new 390, and you know the balance, and 360 and loans. I mean, the frugal four, or is it five now, should be more aptly described the austerity hawks. Frugal four is just too nice for the attitude these people seem to be taking. But I have to say, I am absolutely stunned that one of the victims of this negotiation would be a reduction, eightfold reduction, essentially, of a health scheme to respond to COVID. I mean, EU for Health, the programme and the details of it are set out on the EU's website. It's like, this is, it's here. There's this fantastic programme that is about recognising the lessons of COVID-19 and responding at every level to increasing and supporting increased healthcare capacity. It goes into great detail, and now it's essentially been eliminated at these negotiations, and they're being heralded as a success when we're facing the very strong likelihood of a second wave. I just think it sort of beggars belief. When you think about, I mean, I'll bring it up later, but when you think about things like nursing homes, St Mary's Nursing Home and Marion Road, now the Caritas, being closed down by the Sisters of Charity, effectively, when we desperately need nursing home capacity, when you think about what happened in the nursing homes of COVID-19, and they just don't, you know, they've slashed the budget that might give us the resources and funds to actually invest in these critical areas. It's extraordinary. Thank you, Deputy. Now, in terms of the... There is a health program within the Multi-Annual Financial Framework. That's still there. What was proposed was a significant addition on the Next Generation Fund, which the Commission had proposed. And ideologically, a number of states, and we call them the frugal four, is what they've been dubbed, were against any grant-based approach at all. So this is a very unprecedented package. And health is primarily a member state competency. Europe doesn't have a competency in health in terms of the member states' provisions of health. There are certain rights and entitlements. This was about the procurement of vaccines and areas of that kind, and joint approaches, which were already signed up to and involved in an EU right approach already, Ireland is, in terms of vaccine development and procurement in relation to COVID-19. But the big debate here was people who had started out originally from a zero position on grants to states that might need them and that would be very vulnerable as we thought of COVID, they would have preferred it all to be loans. If you remember, Chancellor Merkel and President Macron came up originally with a 500 billion package. The Commission went way beyond that with a 750 billion package and divided up between grants and loans. That was the battleground for this summit. I fought strongly and intervened regularly to say that Ireland wanted the right package to respond to the scale of the COVID crisis on the European economy. It was vital that an agreement was reached. It is unprecedented in terms of the European Union collectively borrowing for the first time ever to respond to a global pandemic of this scale. That needs to be acknowledged as well, Deputy. And there's 27 member states around that with all sorts of competing interests. And a number of us took, I think, the correct line in saying it's not about competing national interests anymore here. It's about doing the right thing for the Europe as a collective. We export into Europe. European markets are vital to our agriculture industry, vital to many SMEs and jobs and companies and services. That's what Ireland's... That's Ireland's sense of the single market. It's been very important to us in our growth and development as an economy. You may not agree, you may not agree with the single market and the economic model that governs it. But from the 70s onwards, to me, and the development of the European Union, its economic impact on Ireland has been very beneficial. And that's the context in which we fought. Now, in terms of the issues that people have identified in terms of the net contribution and status of Ireland, I think I have the word about in terms of the MFF, we are net contributors now, I think around 3.5, I get the exact figures for you. In relation to the figures will now have to be worked out in terms of its latest package because it was higher. In fact, we know we'll save some of the contribution to the fund, which was, in other words, through repayments over to 2058. You know how it was developed to, the borrowing will go on, it would have to be repaid right up to 2058. Thank you, Thysha. We would have been paying far more if there was more grants, to be frank. But it wasn't the, to me, I didn't see it as a, through that prism, I saw it through the idea of engineering economic recovery in Europe and showing solidarity with other countries, which I think will benefit Ireland ultimately. Thank you, Thysha. And I think in key areas like Brexit, the Peace Plus, the CAP, we've preserved the essentials there in terms of what we went in with on the MFF.