(*) Key achievements in the table state which period they relate to. Many come from the implementation of the predecessor programmes under the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework. This is expected and is due to the multiannual life cycle of EU programmes and the projects they finance, where results often follow only after completion of the programmes.
Budget for 2021-2027
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Rationale and design of the programme
The instrument is designed to allow for a comprehensive and flexible response to the urgent, evolving and diverse needs that arose during the pandemic. It complements the efforts of Member States, in close cooperation and consultation with them, and is activated only in exceptional circumstances where no other instrument available to Member States and to the EU is sufficient.
The COVID‑19 pandemic led to an unprecedented loss of life in the EU. Member States adopted exceptional measures to limit the spread of the virus, which had unprecedented consequences for society and the economy. National healthcare systems in particular have been, and still are, under severe strain, with Member States facing an urgent and high need for medical supplies, treatments and vaccines, additional hospital beds and an increased workforce.
On 14 April 2020, the Council of the European Union adopted Council Regulation (EU) 2020/521, activating emergency support under Council Regulation (EU) 2016/369 to finance the expenditure necessary to address the COVID‑19 pandemic. Unlike other programmes, the Emergency Support Instrument is activated independently of the multiannual financial framework for the period from 1 February 2020 to 31 January 2022. A total of EUR 2.7 billion was mobilised under the 2020 budget. Furthermore, by 15 December 2020 the Member States had made contributions amounting to EUR 750 million in external assigned revenue. With many Member States facing a third wave of infections at the time, including as a result of new variants emerging in the first quarter of 2021, the European Commission proposed to reinforce the instrument in 2021 with an additional EUR 231.7 million from the EU budget to finance actions such as the interoperability of EU digital COVID certificates, an EU wastewater monitoring system, the further development of the passenger locator form exchange platform and digital platforms, and grants to Member States to support the accessibility of tests for the delivery of EU digital COVID certificates. The situation evolved in 2021 with a fourth, fifth and, in some countries, sixth wave, and a decision was made to allocate the remaining instrument funds to vaccine donations to non-EU countries and to the characterisation of the highly contagious Omicron variant that appeared at the end of November 2021.
The nature and consequences of the pandemic are wide-reaching and transnational, affecting all Member States given the quick spread of the virus and requiring a comprehensive response to allow the EU as a whole to address the crisis in a spirit of solidarity. Actions taken by the Member States alone, including with EU financial support from other EU instruments, are not sufficient.
The general objective is to provide needs-based emergency support, complementing the efforts of Member States aimed at preserving life, preventing and alleviating human suffering and maintaining human dignity, wherever the need arises as a result of the pandemic.
The instrument provides added value by directly supporting the Member States through targeted measures that can be deployed strategically and in a coordinated manner to deliver greater impact in mitigating the large-scale consequences of the pandemic.
The legal basis of the instrument does not set out any specific objectives, as it is designed to allow for a comprehensive and flexible response to the urgent, evolving and diverse needs arising from an emergency – in this case the COVID‑19 pandemic. In line with the legal basis, the Commission closely cooperated with the Member States on the implementation of the instrument. It regularly exchanged views with the Member States on their needs and how these were being taken into account in the programme, and informed them of the state of play of the actions to be financed by the instrument. This cooperation and exchange influenced the choice of actions to be prioritised. The European Parliament was also kept informed on the implementation of the instrument.
In line with the broad scope of possible interventions provided for by the legal basis and its needs-based rationale, the instrument is financing a strategically chosen range of actions, reflecting the needs expressed by Member States during its consultations with them. These actions are focused on responsiveness, increased preparedness and bringing fast, targeted and tangible impact with maximum EU added value. The following actions were allocated funding in 2021:
- funding advanced purchase agreements with COVID‑19 vaccine developers;
- the development of EU digital COVID certificates underpinning the free movement of persons;
- wastewater monitoring;
- further development of the passenger locator form exchange platform;
- funding the purchase for donation to Member States of specialised Reverse Transcriptase – Polymerase Chain Reaction assays to identify variants;
- the provision of test accessibility for the delivery of EU digital COVID certificates;
- support to the COVID-19 response and global vaccination efforts in low- and lower-middle-income countries;
- grants to research institutes to analyse the characteristics of the Omicron variant;
- the revocation of false digital COVID‑19 certificates and the continuity and good functioning of the EU digital COVID certificate system.
A specific internal governance arrangement was put in place, including a steering committee composed of the co-delegated authorising officers, together with the Secretariat-General of the Commission and DG Budget, to provide strategic coordination of the instrument. The instrument is centrally managed by the Commission and implemented mostly through direct management.
The instrument is activated independently from the multiannual financing framework. It spans both the 2014-2020 and 2021-2027 periods. The present activation of the instrument, currently aimed at helping to fight the COVID-19 crisis, expired on 31 January 2022 and the instrument was deactivated; the actions currently financed are expected to be covered by the new generation of programmes, in particular EU4Health, as appropriate.
Programme website:
Impact assessment:
- The 2016-2019 activation of the instrument in response to the refugee crisis in Greece was subject to an evaluation in 2019.
Relevant regulation:
- Council Regulation (EU) 2016/369 and Council Regulation (EU) 2020/521, activating the emergency support under Regulation (EU) 2016/369.
Evaluations:
- Implementation report to the Council: COM(2022) 386 from 28 July 2022.
Budget
Budget programming (million EUR):
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The instrument expired on 31 January 2022 and no commitment appropriations were requested for 2022.
Budget performance – implementation
Voted budget implementation (million EUR)(1):
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- The instrument was set up in 2020 for a limited period of time (due to end in January 2022).
- The instrument was financed with EUR 2.7 billion from the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework and EUR 750 million from Member States’ contributions (external assigned revenue). Of this envelope, total commitments amounting to EUR 3 billion were used in 2020 to expand the portfolio of advance purchase agreements with promising vaccine candidates. Out of the EUR 750 million in external assigned revenue from Member States’ contributions, EUR 27 million were not spent following negative answers from Member States, which would otherwise have allowed these funds to be used in the vaccine-sharing initiative for low-income countries. The EUR 27 million will be reimbursed back to the Member States.
- A final report on its implementation was adopted by the Commission on 28 July 2022 and presented to the Council (COM(2022) 386).
- A contribution agreement to Global Fund (NDICI CHALLENGE/2022/ 437-705) under the title ‘2022 Contribution to the Global Fund and its COVID-19 Response Mechanism’ was signed on 6 December 2022 for the total amount of EUR 290 million, of which the instrument provided EUR 100 million, dedicated to a COVID-19 response mechanism under objective 4 and namely to provide additional support for country responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and to ensure the continuity of the fight against HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. The whole financing for this contract was disbursed in December 2022 as a pre-financing.
- In addition, a grant agreement was signed with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (NDICI CHALLENGE/2022/438-020) entitled ‘Support to the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in selected most under-vaccinated countries’ on 9 December 2022 for the total amount of EUR 375 million, of which EUR 300 million came from instrument funds, with a retrospective date for reimbursing this part starting on 1 June 2022.The whole financing for this contract was also disbursed in December 2022 as a pre-financing. This funding contributed to the enhanced rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in the priority countries, mostly in Africa, comprising the most under-vaccinated populations, through COVAX’s COVID-19 Delivery Support programme. It channels support through national governments and/or selected implementing partners for the organisation and coordination of vaccination campaigns, reinforcing cold-chain and supply infrastructure management, human resources, and/or addressing challenges with vaccine demand, hesitancy and misinformation, among other activities.
- An addendum to a contribution agreement to the World Health Organization’s ongoing programme on Universal Health Coverage (NDICI CHALLENGE/2022/ 439-082) was signed in December 2022, where EUR 61 402 221.46 came from the instrument. The purpose of the addendum is to strengthen national health systems through improving governance; improving access to medicines and health products; improving distribution and skills of health workforce; improving health financing; health management information systems and service delivery. It also aims at strengthening national health systems to ensure integration at all levels of non-communicable disease prevention, management and care. This contribution agreement also supports the International Health Partnership for Universal Health Coverage 2030 (UHC2030) to coordinate policy dialogue and alignment between all stakeholders at the country-regional and global levels. EUR 30 million was paid as pre-financing in 2022.
- Three grants were signed for EUR 0.5 million with three top research institutes for the characterisation of the Omicron variant – epidemiological analyses, virus isolation, neutralisation and genome sequencing. The grants were signed with Statens Serum Institute, KU Leuven and Pasteur Institute in March 2022 and payments were made within the year.
The rest of the payments made under the instrument were to honour existing legal commitments.
- Payments for eight grant agreements related to the instrument’s ‘Mobility’ package, which covered actions such as:
- cargo transport (e.g. assistance and relief items) from non-EU countries into the EU and within the EU;
- transfer of patients within the EU and from the EU to non-EU countries; and
- transport of medical personnel and teams, within the EU and into the EU from non-EU countries, along with operational support for mobile medical response capacities.
- Supply of 305 ultraviolet disinfecting robots to hospitals in all 27 Member States, providing innovative, efficient and effective solutions to ensure the safety of healthcare environments and their staff.
- Support for the Member States in creating and leveraging the EU digital COVID certificate system with a focus in 2022 on the new revocation feature which also required additional maintenance, monitoring and support for connected countries to enable this functionality. In addition, 18 non-EU countries joined the EU digital COVID certificate ecosystem in 2022. The payments under the system and the interoperability of digital certificates will continue in 2023.
- Support for the interoperability of digital certificates (grants to the Member States).
In 2023 the payments made concerned the following actions :
- Payments of EUR 0,261 million for the implementation of the Wastewater Observatory for Public Health.
- Payments of EUR 0,254 million for the necessary infrastructure for the issuance and verification of interoperable certificates making up the “Digital Green Certificate” (renamed COVID certificate)
- The current ePLF and the supporting IT platform continued to be maintained in 2023 and preserved to ensure rapid reactivation if required. In 2023 EUR 0,675 million of payments were made for supporting the ePLF platform. The Passenger Locator Forms’ Exchange Platform (ePLF) has been an important pillar of the broader efforts at EU level to bring order and efficiency gains in the complex and fragmented landscape of PLFs. Whereas Member States started to collect different PLFs, often on paper, and to exchange them with each other using manual tools, EU initiatives such as the EUdPLF and the ePLF offered a common digital template and a secure, automated system to exchange data, respectively. The ePLF project enabled the development of a solid technical and legal solution that enriches the toolbox the EU will be able to deploy rapidly in case of future needs.
- Final payment of EUR 0,200 million for the grant for the support of the interoperability of Digital Green Certificate for Denmark. The ESI grant for Denmark, was used to implement successfully the planned technical, communication and visibility activities related to the country’s connection to the EU Digital Covid-19 certificate gateway for exchange of digital keys across EU Member States .
- Final payments made in 2023 for grants related to the following actions in 12 Member States:
- national wastewater surveillance system targeted at data collection of SARS-CoV-2 and its variants in wastewaters
- transform existing research activities into a permanent surveillance system with a focus on SARS-CoV-2 variants
- support the completion of existing surveillance systems with a focus on variants detection
- upgrade of digital infrastructure at national level to establish inter-operability with the EU-wide digital exchange platform
Contribution to horizontal priorities
Green budgeting
Contribution to green budgeting priorities (million EUR):
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- The instrument expired on 31 January 2022 and no commitment appropriations were requested for 2023. Therefore, there was no reporting on gender contribution for the year 2023.
Gender
Contribution to gender equality (million EUR) (*):
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- The instrument expired on 31 January 2022 and no commitment appropriations were requested for 2023. Therefore, there was no reporting on gender contribution for the year 2023.
Digital
Contribution to digital transition (million EUR):
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- The instrument expired on 31 January 2022 and no commitment appropriations were requested for 2023. Therefore, there was no reporting on digital contribution for the year 2023.
Budget performance – outcomes
- The instrument is needs-based, in the context of a quickly evolving pandemic. No performance framework or indicators are prescribed in the legal basis, since the instrument was designed to be maximally adaptable to emerging needs. The breadth of scope and possible interventions, in the context of a quickly evolving epidemiological situation, made for a challenging implementation landscape, also taking into account the limited EU competences in the health domain.
- The instrument has proven its effectiveness in terms of quickly mobilising resources towards the needs identified in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, it managed to effectively respond to the urgent, evolving and diverse needs of Member States in responding to the crisis. The flexibility enshrined in the legal basis and the mandate given to the Commission to centrally manage the funding, in cooperation with Member States, allowed the prioritisation of those collective actions that could generate more timely interventions and outcomes that could not have been achieved by Member States acting individually.
- The major focus of the instrument (around 70% of funding) has been on the vaccines initiative, which allowed the conclusion at an early stage of advance purchase agreements with pharmaceutical companies developing COVID‑19 vaccines, providing the necessary investment to advance the scientific progress and production capacities, as a result of which 4.6 billion doses of COVID‑19 vaccines were secured for Member States. Funds were also allocated to vaccine-sharing mechanisms, in order to secure 200 million vaccine doses and auxiliary material in low- and lower-middle-income countries.
- The instrument allowed individual Member States to engage with vaccine developers to secure supplies, and leveraged the scale of the EU’s investment to reduce prices and obtain contractual conditions on issues such as liability and capacity increase, in order to mitigate Member States’ risks going forward. At the same time, the advance purchase agreements funded by the instrument are by nature risky investments. While the Commission designed a portfolio of contracts with the most promising candidates across a wide range of technologies, there was no guarantee that individual vaccines would be successful or authorised in the EU, or that producers would be able to step up their production at the levels they had committed to.
- The instrument delivered some 10 million masks to medical staff in the early phase of the crisis, when the pressure on the supply of equipment was at its highest.
- The programme also allowed all Member States to have access to the therapeutic Remdesivir and to procure and donate over 23 million rapid antigen tests to the interested Member States. It also financed clinical trials to test repurposed medicines, the use of convalescent COVID‑19 patients’ plasma, the EU wastewater monitoring system and the urgent characterisation of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. All of these initiatives would have been unlikely to be financed in the absence of this programme.
- In total, over 2 000 operations via air, land or sea have been funded under the mobility package, which provided support for the cargo transport of COVID‑19-related medical items, the transport of medical personnel and the transfer of patients. The transport of more than 515 health workers and approximately 135 patients was facilitated.
- The instrument provided support for the development of interoperability between national contact tracing apps and the stepping up of testing capacity across the seven Member States that expressed an interest. A total of 9 222 volunteers and professionals have been trained in testing techniques, in addition to the 1 795 mobile testing teams established and 1 263 309 tests conducted. The activities were implemented from July 2020 to the end of September 2021. The instrument financed grants to 24 interested Member States so that they could join the EU gateway for issuing digital COVID certificates as a proof of vaccination, recovery or negative test, between 29 March and 31 December 2021. Additionally, grants to 18 Member States supported the accessibility of tests for the delivery of the digital COVID certificate, for the period from 1 June to 31 October 2021.
- The provision of training in intensive care skills has proved very successful to increase the regular intensive care unit staff’s capacity to take care of COVID-19 patients. With the collaboration of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, more than 17 000 professionals were trained in 24 EU Member States and the United Kingdom, in 717 hospitals during the period from August 2020 to May 2021.
- The instrument has also funded the supply of 305 ultraviolet disinfecting robots to hospitals across the EU, providing efficient and effective solutions to ensure the safety of healthcare environments and their staff.
- The instrument is unique under several points of view. It was deployed in a rapidly evolving environment marked by uncertainties about the nature of the virus, the appropriate medical response, and both supply and demand. At the same time, however, it was effective in responding swiftly when needed, for example, by providing medical countermeasures (Remdesivir, rapid antigen tests, etc.) in support to Member State needs. Finally, the breadth of scope and possible interventions also required specialised policymaking in the context of an ever-changing epidemiological situation. This is particularly commendable, especially considering the supporting competences of the EU in the health domain.
- While the instrument has only been operational since April 2020, the European Court of Auditors’ review on the EU’s initial contribution to the public health response (01/2021), published in January 2021, acknowledged the role of the instrument in complementing Member States’ and other EU responses. The Court did not make recommendations but acknowledged that it was a challenge for the EU to rapidly complement the measures taken within its formal remit with additional actions, as public health is primarily a national competence. With regard to the Commission’s financial support to vaccine development, the Court highlighted that the Commission mitigated the inherent risk linked to vaccine development by investing in a range of vaccine technologies and companies.
Sustainable development goals
Contribution to the sustainable development goals
SDGs the programme contributes to | Example |
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SDG3 Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages | This activation of the instrument was in its entirety intended to respond to a health crisis. |