Recommendation 2174 (2020)

Lessons for the future from an effective and rights-based response to the Covid-19 pandemic

Author(s): Parliamentary Assembly

Origin - Text adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 26 June 2020 (see Doc. 15115, report of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development, rapporteur: Mr Andrej Hunko).

1. The Parliamentary Assembly refers to its Resolution 2329 (2020) on lessons for the future from an effective and rights-based response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

2. The Assembly believes that the Council of Europe’s human rights mandate requires the re-establishment of comprehensive intergovernmental co-operation and co-ordination in the field of public health, including with a view to building a regional system capable of assisting the responsible international and European Union institutions in their endeavours to ensure effective preparedness for and reaction to pandemics.

3. The Assembly thus recommends that the Committee of Ministers urgently re-establish an intergovernmental steering committee on public health as a first step towards this goal and consider how the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) of the Council of Europe could be associated with the committee’s work.