MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th June, 2020) German Health Minister Jens Spahn has suggested forming an EU-wide medical alliance to quickly respond to health crises, which he likened to a "health care NATO."
"Europe needs a better mechanism for health crises... The EU should be at the center of an alliance to support one another in the event of a pandemic, a sort of a health care NATO," he told the Rheinische Post newspaper.
A common medical institution, Spahn said further, would allow EU nations to promptly mobilize experts, doctors and resources as soon as a member state reports a virus outbreak to avert the kind of shortages of medical equipment and protective gear the EU saw at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in spring.
The minister said Germany would bring up these and other measures during its presidency of the EU. He said the 27-nation union needed to "dare and trust" itself more in order to redefine its role in the increasingly bipolar world that is being divided between the United States and China.
