According to the WHO, Europe has an estimated shortage of around 1.6 million health and social care workers in 2024 and will have 4 million by 2030, when Europe will be short of 600,000 doctors, 2.3 million of nurses and 1.1 million social care workers and assistants.
The pandemic, the imbalances between supply and demand of personnel and the migration of workers towards more economically attractive countries outside the EU – recall Mario Mantovani and Ruggero Razza of the Group of European Conservatives and Reformists – are jeopardizing the proper functioning of the European healthcare sector.
At the same time, the two Italian MEPs highlight, “the Commission’s current programs and resources to support nurses and social care workers seem rather limited, given the size of the EU health budget, and so far they have not recorded significant progress in remedy the skills shortage in these professions”.
However, in light of the limited competence of the EU Commission on this issue, it is difficult to strengthen programs to support employment levels in the European healthcare sector.
In response to the question, the EU Commission, through Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, underlined that according to Article 168(7) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, health management is the responsibility of the Member States, including responsibility for employment levels. . The same applies, as recalled by Article 153 (4) of the Treaty, for the management of social protection. Despite the limited competence of the European Commission, an aspect unfortunately underestimated in the “justifying” declarations of the various European executives, in the background the lack of attention of the EU institutions for Health remains evident, confirmed, for example, by the lack of a specific parliamentary commission at the European Parliament. A real paradox considering that until 2 years ago we were fighting against the Covid-19 epidemic…
Help could certainly come from cohesion policy but, as noted, the European Union is opting to remove the European regions from the scope of these policies, aiming to centralize decisions, with all due respect to the so-called “Europe of regions and identities” .
To once again put a stop to the growing lack of health workers, the Commission proposed to the Council a recommendation aimed precisely at supporting employment levels in the Member States and “attracting talent from third countries” while a growing number of young nurses, doctors and other social and health workers pack their bags in search of better working conditions. Sometimes, and paradoxically, precisely in those third countries mentioned in the recommendations of the EU Commission.
