, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/eu-affairs/20210414STO02012/
EU gets stricter on black pepper from Brazil and peanuts from India
The European Commission has tightened checks on black pepper from Brazil because of Salmonella and peanuts from India because of aflatoxins.
These and other products entering the European Union from non-EU countries are now subject to a temporary increase of official controls. Revised legislation has also seen some checks become less strict.
The basis of the changes is the occurrence of incidents reported through the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) and information from official controls performed by member states on food and feed of non-animal origin.
Tighter controls
The frequency of identity and physical checks on black pepper from Brazil has been increased from 20 percent to 50 percent. This is because of the large amount of non-compliances with EU requirements for Salmonella contamination detected during official controls in 2019 and early 2020 and the high number of reports in the RASFF during that period.
This year there have been 28 RASFF reports of Salmonella in black pepper from Brazil with most reported by Germany. Serotypes include Rubislaw, Infantis, Saintpaul, Coeln, Matadi, Gaminara, and Javiana.
The frequency of identity and physical checks on peanuts, also known as groundnuts, from India because of aflatoxins has also gone up from 10 percent to 50 percent. Checks on peppers of the Capsicum species, other than sweet, for pesticide residues from Thailand will rise from 10 percent to 20 percent.
Sweet peppers from Turkey are already listed in the regulation because of the risk of contamination by pesticide residues but this has been amended to cover all peppers of the Capsicum species.
Reduced measures
Checks on goji berries from China because of pesticide residues and dried grapes from Turkey because of Ochratoxin A have been relaxed because of improved compliance in the second half of 2019 and first quarter of 2020.
For peanuts from Brazil, the rate of identity and physical checks has been set at 10 percent because of the risk of contamination by aflatoxins. The frequency of non-compliance with EU rules during official controls decreased in the second semester of 2019 and remained at low levels in the first few months of 2020. Controls of this product from China because of the same issue are also at 10 percent.
The frequency of identity and physical checks for hazelnuts from Turkey because of aflatoxins has been reduced to 5 percent.
Foodstuffs containing betel leaves originating in, or being sent from, Bangladesh have been banned since June 2014 because of Salmonella contamination. However, the European Commission approved an action plan submitted by Bangladesh in July 2020 covering all steps of the production chain. The frequency of identity and physical checks will be set at 50 percent.
Foodstuffs consisting of dried beans from Nigeria remain suspended because of pesticide residue concerns. Peanuts and pistachios from the United States are being checked for aflatoxins at a rate of 10 percent.
Other products still subject to a temporary increase in controls include peanuts from Bolivia because of aflatoxins with checks at a frequency of 50 percent; sweet peppers from China because of Salmonella at a rate of 20 percent; sesame seeds from Ethiopia because of Salmonella at 50 percent; palm oil from Ghana because of Sudan dyes at 50 percent and turnips from Lebanon because of Rhodamine B at a frequency of 50 percent.
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Margaret River’s new wave of wine
When Josephine Perry entered the Margaret River Wine Show in 2014, her ‘Skinnie’ was met with confusion.
“Someone pulled it out and said ‘this is faulty’ and I said, ‘no, it’s an orange wine’,” Perry recalls.
“It is 100 per cent sav blanc but it is bright orange, fermented on skins in an amphora for up to five months, with no sulphur. It stumped them. They didn’t have a category they could put my wines in.”
And so the competition’s “alternative styles and emerging varieties” categories were born.
“That first year it was just my wine but now there are a few people, beautiful names down here, that are making those kind of styles because they can see it’s a style people want to drink.”
Perry is one of a new wave of winemakers in the Margaret River region who are turning the tide on tradition. Over the past decade, a thriving counterculture has emerged in a place primarily heralded for its chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon.
Machines and mass production have been traded for small batch and sustainability. There is a prevailing attitude of making wines accessible and drinkable, rather than award-winnable. And while they may cover a variety of shades on the winemaking spectrum, these producers all have one thing in common: they are making wine they want to drink, using the method they think is best. And what they are delivering is proving incredibly popular.
From utilising ancient and natural winemaking methods to exploring lesser known grape varieties and experimenting with different combinations, the next generation of wines from the South West are different and delicious.
Dylan Arvidson – LS Merchants, Cowaramup
Try: the 2020 Vermentino. A zippy Italian white grown near the ocean in Margaret River.
Dylan Arvidson is passionate about flavour. Everything the young winemaker does at LS Merchants comes back to whether the drop is delicious.
Sure, he uses low intervention methods and works predominantly with organic growers, but they are part of his philosophy of packing as much natural flavour into his wine as he can.
LS Merchants winemaker Dylan Arvidson with his dog Flash.Credit:Dion Robeson
He makes picking decisions based on first tastes in the vineyard and bottling decisions on how the wine tastes in the tank or barrel.
“Nothing’s really done to a strict timeline or a strict analysis, it is just ‘does it taste good, well then let’s put it to bottle’,” he explains.
“Flavour has always been a driving force for me and wine is so subjective, everyone enjoys different things but I really think we shouldn’t try to over-make wine.
“So many wineries really try and force these wines to be what they traditionally have been out of France, like cabernet out of Bordeaux or chardonnay out of Burgundy. You always look to those wines and they are the shining light I guess in terms of world wine, but at the same time, I want a local wine I can open and say ‘man, that’s delicious and it tastes like these grapes from this place’.
“So we make wine by feel, try and work as sustainably as possible and, I guess most importantly, we pay a lot of attention to the right variety planted on the right soil in the right area.”
At the LS Merchants Cowaramup cellar door, visitors are greeted by a sign that reads “taking the wank out of wine since 2015″.
For a boy from Geelong, inspired by the natural wine coming out of South Australia, Arvidson thinks WA is now leading the charge with interesting, well made, minimal intervention wines.
“Whereas some of the eastern states are a little bit more tied to that idea of natural wine, in WA we have said, ‘we’re just going to do what we do’.
“Wines are delicious, we make them with love, we make them by hand, we don’t have to fit into this, you know, tight definition … we’re all doing something different because we’re sick of the standard so there is no right or wrong, it should just be about what’s delicious.”
Sarah Morris and Iwo Jakimowicz – Si Vintners, Rosa Glen
Try: the 2020 Sophie Rose. A light skin contact pinot noir rosé matured in concrete eggs.
Si Vintners’ Sarah Morris and Iwo Jakimowicz at their property in the Margaret River region.
For partners Sarah Morris and Iwo Jakimowicz, it’s all about the land.
At Si Vintners, they craft small-batch wines from estate-grown grapes in Rosa Glen, just east of the small town of Witchcliffe. Chickens and ducks roam the property and babydoll sheep are used to control grass among the vines and provide a natural fertiliser.
Since buying the mature vineyard in 2010, they have used organic and bio-dynamic farming principles and gently produce wines that are naturally fermented in a range of vessels.
“When we started we knew we wanted to farm organically and we don’t want to use any additives in winemaking,” Jakimowicz says.
“Now this place has had 10 years of biodynamic love and it’s so much healthier and more resilient.”
The couple, who met while studying at Curtin University is “really obsessed with acidity” and work with chardonnay, cabernet and pinot noir grapes, among others, to produce bold, avant-garde wines.
“We love natural acidity and we love the tension that creates in a wine,” Jakimowicz says. “We spent a lot of time in Europe and love making wines that seek to compare to the French wines we drink.”
Morris says those wines are popular with city drinkers too. During the time we chat at the winery, one young couple roll through for a tasting and leave laden with cases.
“We are blown away by how well educated this younger crew are about food and wine. They are hungry for knowledge and so many of them know so much about our philosophy, it’s quite impressive,” Morris says.
“There’s a lot of people, especially in their late 20s, loving those fully funky wines and then there are people who like our wine because they want to consume products with less additives and things … that’s who we are making wine for and we are excited there are increasingly more producers down here doing the same.”
Nic Peterkin – L.A.S Vino, Wilyabrup
Try: the 2018 Pirate Blend. A unique blend of three traditional port grapes.
L.A.S Vino’s Nic Peterkin working with an organic cabernet.Credit:Tess Ingram
The pirates of fables are rule-breaking outlaws pursuing their personal desires with passion.
Nic Peterkin, you could argue, is somewhat of a modern-day winemaking pirate, chasing his winemaking dreams with gusto and individuality. As the son of Mike Peterkin, who planted the family’s Pierro vineyard in 1980 and is renowned for the chardonnay it produces, he has a strong wine heritage but he refuses to conform to tradition.
“Chardonnay I find kind of boring because it’s been done,” he says with a grin.
“I want to make wines that build on what’s already happening in the region.”
His Pirate Blend, for example, is unlike anything produced in Margaret River. It contains three Portuguese varieties – touriga nacional, tinta cao and sousao – traditionally used in port.
“I couldn’t resist giving them a try as a blend,” he said. “There’s a really small production over here, I think only three or four vineyards in WA. I wanted to put it into a port-style bottle as an ode to the varieties and it occurred to me this was such a pirate wine, and so the name stuck.”
Along with a few others in the region, he is also working to revive chenin, offering a crisp, dry organic and biodynamic version.
L.A.S stands for luck, art and science, which Peterkin says you need a strong combination of to make good wines. The first wines under that banner were made in 2013 but Peterkin says it was a bit of luck a few years earlier, that gave him and some of his regional peers an opportunity in the competitive wine industry.
“When a few of us got going there was this perfect storm of external factors that I think set us on this course,” he recalls.
“We had just had the GFC and so there were a lot of excess grapes down here, we had a really high Australian dollar and no jobs for winemakers because of all of that. It presented an opportunity for a young winemaker to go out on their own and try something different.
“We are not treating wine like a big industry thing. We are all under 100 tonnes, and big commercial wineries are doing that in a day, so it’s a very different ethos.”
Josephine Perry – Dormilona, Margaret River
Try: the 2020 Clayface cabernet. Made in an Italian clay amphora, this wine was plunged daily by feet and hand then left to macerate on its skins for five months.
Dormilona winemaker Josephine Perry with her dog Humphrey at her Margaret River winery.Credit:Tess Ingram
Dormilona means lazy bones in Spanish. It was the nickname given to winemaker Jo Perry during a stint in Spain “because I was always tuckered out and looking for somewhere to sleep” but to the contrary, her winemaking methods, while hands-off, are all about effort and attention to detail.
Perry’s wines are made from familiar varieties like chardonnay and cabernet but they are not typical of the wines of the region.
“Cabernet and chardonnay are the royal family of the area,” Perry says.
“I do love tradition and I don’t like to mess with it but I do put my play on it.”
From picking early, to using clay amphoras to ferment and mature wine, Perry is focused on handling the grapes as little as possible to allow the fruit to express itself.
Behind Ben Gould’s Blind Corner, which Perry cites as one of the pioneers of natural and organic wines in the region, Perry and her partner Jim Crespin bottled the first Dormilona wines in 2013, making them among the first of the ‘new wave’ of producers in Margaret River influenced by changing drinking trends and European winemaking approaches.
While her wines can be found in Perth bottleshops and bars, it’s the region’s community that Perry is increasingly intent on servicing. She has moved her operation to the centre of town and hopes to open a cellar door and bottleshop, with options for locals to fill and recycle one litre “flasks” of her wine.
“That sense of community is really important to me,” she says.
“And while what we do has always been at the smaller end of town, I feel like there is a shift coming, with some of the bigger wineries coming in and doing pet nats [a rustic sparkling wine] and orange wines.
“I’m so for it, because they have the money and infrastructure and they are going to put us more on the map. It’s just a matter of whether it is going to be sustainable. I remember when I first started everyone was bagging me saying, ‘natural winemaking is such a phase, it will go out of fashion’ and it just hasn’t.”
Livia Maiorana and Mijan Patterson – South by South West, Cowaramup
Try: the 2020 Chardonnay. A contemporary Margaret River chardonnay that has been hand-harvested and whole bunch pressed.
Mijan Patterson and Livia Maiorana hard at work on their 2020 vintage with their dog Meeka.
They have only been making their own wine for five years, but Livia Maiorana and Mijan Patterson have already noticed a change in the way people are consuming wine.
“There has been a shift to people being more aware of what they’re consuming, what goes into wine and how it’s made. I also think younger people especially have different perspectives now in terms of wine and food and are treating wine with a little bit more respect,” Maiorana says.
“When we first started, we made a shiraz but we called it syrah because we made it more at that lighter end of the spectrum. This was back in 2016 and people couldn’t get their heads around syrah and couldn’t even really pronounce it… now we are finding that the weirder the name is, the more people want it. It is like people’s minds have opened up.”
Their label, South by South West, was born near Lake Tahoe in California when Maiorana and Patterson were on a global wine safari, where they studied (and drank) wine from different regions of the world.
The pair returned home to Australia and set up in Margaret River in 2016 with a view to putting a contemporary spin on classical winemaking methods, while really honouring the South West region. Maiorana studied winemaking but also has a degree in organic chemistry and engineering, while Patterson is a graphic designer by trade.
“We learned so much about how small-batch wines can tell a story about their region of origin and wanted to come here and use the great grapes in this region to just make wines that we like, in styles that we like to drink, it’s pretty much that easy,” Maiorana says.
“We are passionate about food and like to make lifestyle wine … we don’t make any big reds, we try and make lower alcohol wines and be more on the savory spectrum as opposed to big fruit bowls. They’re the wines we like to drink.”
Report: Religion in China Suffers ‘Most Serious Crackdown Since the Cultural Revolution’
Chinese authorities have significantly intensified their crackdown on all religious minorities over the past two years, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) revealed Tuesday in a comprehensive report.
Policy-making in China “is more centralised, repression is more intense and wide-spread, and technology is being refined for the creation of a surveillance state,” declared ACN’s Religious Freedom in the World Report 2021, an 818-page compilation of the state of religious freedom and persecution in the world today.
“Freedom of religion in China is currently subjected to the most serious crackdown since the Cultural Revolution,” it noted, while also providing numerous specific examples of why this is the case.
The report also observed that of all the 198 countries and territories investigated in the Pew Research Center’s 2020 annual report tracking global patterns in restrictions on religion, China registered the highest score on the Government Restrictions Index (GRI).
“The clampdown includes the incarceration of between 900,000 and 1.8 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and members of other Muslim groups in more than 1,300 concentration camps,” the report noted, and civilians have been arrested and sent to camps for outward expressions of religious piety, such as “wearing long beards” or “refusing to drink alcohol.”
“Reports of widespread and systematic torture, abysmal conditions, sexual violence and forced labour have emerged, and a campaign of forced sterilisation of Uyghur women has been conducted in parts of the XUAR,” it observed.
Christians have also suffered from “the rapidly deteriorating conditions of religious freedom in the country,” the report stated, as the CCP has clamped down on activities of all “illegal” house churches as well as the Catholic underground Church.
In the two years following the 2018 signature of a Provisional Agreement between the Vatican and the CCP over the naming of bishops, “the underground clergy were encouraged to join the state controlled Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA),” the report stated.
“Catholic hierarchy also continue to suffer harassment and arrest,” it noted
According to the ACN report, the largest spiritual group in China facing severe persecution is likely Falun Gong, a banned movement that draws on Buddhist tradition.
“In 2019, thousands of practitioners were arrested for practising the meditation exercises,” the report observed, and in 2019, a UK-based independent inquiry found that “forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale” and Falun Gong practitioners have been “probably the main source of organ supply.”
The Chinese Communist Party now employs repressive surveillance technologies that increasingly target faith groups, the report stated, with “626 million AI-enhanced surveillance cameras and smart-phone scanners at key pedestrian check-points, producing data which is cross-referenced by analytical platforms and coupled with an integrated social credit system.”
“Since March 2018, religion has been under the direction of the United Front Work Department, an agency of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” the report noted, “thus taking over the State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA). As a result, the CCP has direct control over religious affairs.”
Official prayer of the 10th World Meeting of Families released – Vatican News
By Robin Gomes
The theme chosen by Pope Francis for the 10th World Meeting of the Families (WMOF) is, “Family love: a vocation and a path to holiness”, which has been the inspiration of the official prayer for the ecclesial event.
Praying with family, parish, diocese
“Praying is a way to enter into the heart of the Amoris Laetitia Year and the preparation for the event in Rome,” explained Cardinal Joseph Kevin Farrell, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, in a statement to release the prayer. “Many families and communities,” he said, “have been waiting a long time to be able to set out on their way, at least spiritually, to Rome.” “Prayer will accompany them and help them to grasp the message of the gathering.”
Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the Vicar of Rome Diocese, of which the Pope is the Bishop, explained that “prayer will be at the heart of the path of preparation”. “It will guide our work and inspire the reflections to help us, in the light of faith, to discern the new challenges that the pandemic emergency poses to the ecclesial community with regard to families.” He thus invited “everyone to prepare for this event of grace that the Church of Rome has the joy of hosting, and to address this prayer to the Lord in the intimacy of their family, together with the parish and diocesan community.”
WMOF
The WMOF tradition was begun by Saint Pope John Paul II in 1994 when the United Nations declared that year as “International Year of the Family”. Hence, the 1st WMOF was held that year in Rome, October 8 and 9.
Since then, every three years, in different places around the world, a World Meeting of Families has been held, together with an International Pastoral-Theological Congress. It concludes with a Festival of Families in the presence of the Pope and a great final Eucharistic Celebration.
The 10th WMOF had originally been scheduled for June 2021, but because of the pandemic, Pope Francis, together with the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, decided to postpone to June, next year. A few other Church events have also been postponed.
As this World Meeting of Families (WMOF) had been scheduled to fall on the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ 2016 post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, on the pastoral care of the family, next year’s meeting will reflect on the spirituality of the family in light of the call to holiness as expressed in his 2018 apostolic exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate.
Family, vocation, holiness
A statement by Rome Diocese and the Dicastery explained that the prayer, entitled, “Family Love: Vocation and Path to Holiness”, “springs from deep gratitude to our Heavenly Father for the great gift of family, a very special place for loving relationships”. It is “intended to be a pastoral tool: it can be prayed from now on in parishes, in communities, at home, to help with preparation for the next year’s international event.”
Cardinal Farrell pointed out, “It is from the love experienced in family life that the vocation of every child is born”. “It is love savoured within the domestic walls that traces the first steps on the path to holiness.” An experience of prayer introduces us to the deeper liberating meaning of relationships in daily life. The binomials of family and vocation together with family and holiness show us how family relationships are of fundamental importance in the generation of love.
Amidst the trials, difficulties, challenges and difficulties of life today, it might “seem somewhat out of touch or inappropriate to talk about family holiness,” the cardinal noted. Herein comes the importance of prayer in living the sacrament of marriage to the full. He said a relationship with God enables Christian couples every day to rekindle the Grace they have received, and this sustains them in their daily tasks and struggles.
Our life can always be a path to personal, family and couple holiness, a way to grow in love for others. All members of the family including children, young people, parents and grandparents, the cardinal said, are called to discover in themselves a call to holiness.
Cardinal De Donatis also underscored the point and invited Christian couples to walk their path of holiness together, following in the footsteps of illustrious saints and beatified couples and sustained by their intercession. He held up examples such as the parents of St Thérèse of Lisieux or the Beltrame Quattrocchi couple, who accepted life’s painful trials and saw the faithful presence of Christ in the story of their love.
Below is the text of the official prayer for the X World Meeting of Families, 22-26 June 2022:
Family Love: Vocation and Path to Holiness
Heavenly Father,
We come before You to praise You
and to thank You for the great gift of the family.
We pray to You for all families
consecrated by the Sacrament of Matrimony.
May they rediscover each day
the grace they have received,
and as small domestic Churches,
may they know how to witness to Your presence
and to the love with which Christ loves the Church.
We pray to You for all families faced with difficulty and suffering
caused by illness or circumstances of which only You know.
Sustain them and make them aware
of the path to holiness upon which You call them,
so that they might experience Your infinite mercy
and find new ways to grow in love.
We pray to You for children and young people:
may they encounter You and respond joyfully
to the vocation You have in mind for them;
We pray for parents and grandparents: may they be aware
that they are signs of the fatherhood and motherhood of God
in caring for the children who, in body and spirit, You entrust to them;
and for the experience of fraternity
that the family can give to the world
Lord, grant that each family
might live their specific vocation to holiness in the Church
as a call to become missionary disciples,
in the service of life and peace,
in communion with our priests, religious,
and all vocations in the Church.
Bless the World Meeting of Families.
Amen.
Religion Is By Choice; You Don’t Need To Kill People – Samklef
Veteran record music producer, Samuel Oguachuba, alias Samklef has said that religion is by choice and not by force.
The music producer turned blogger noted this during his exchange with a Twitter user who told him not to color all Muslims with the same brush.
The producer then replied that religion should not get to the point of killing one another. He went on to add that he has friends from other religions.
Read Also: Nigerians Go To Church Because They Want A Miracle, Not To Worship God – Samklef
“Religion is by choice u don’t need to kill people or force people. I have Muslim friends. I have Hindu’ Friends also growing up one of my classmate in fagba his father was a babalawo. I love human beings“, he wrote.
See the exchange below:
European Parliament to vote on EU-UK post-Brexit trade pact
The European Parliament is to hold a vote next Tuesday on ratifying the EU-UK trade and cooperation agreement that defines post-Brexit relations with Britain, European sources told AFP.
If MEPs vote in favour, as expected, it would finalise the adoption of the pact by both sides before a mutually agreed deadline runs out at the end of this month.
Currently, the treaty is provisionally applied, pending the European Parliament’s adoption. British MPs ratified it the day it was signed, on December 30, 2020.
The European Parliament had dragged its feet on holding a vote, in part to protest unilateral moves by London to suspend checks on goods entering Northern Ireland.
The European Commission last month launched a lawsuit against Britain over that decision, which it said violated the Brexit divorce deal struck a year before the trade and cooperation agreement (TCA).
The Brexit deal worked out the rights of EU and British citizens in each other’s territory and notably kept the UK’s Northern Ireland region within the orbit of EU customs rules, with a de facto border for goods down the Irish Sea.
That arrangement, which both sides said was necessary to prevent any border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland, has caused trade friction for goods from Britain and triggered violence fuelled by unionist anger.
The TCA handles the broader relationship, ensuring free trade for British-made goods into the EU and vice-versa and establishes rules for cooperating in a number of areas, including fishing, flights and road haulage and, in a very limited way, services.
The document reflects Britain’s decision to go for a hard Brexit from the European Union, opting for independence from the EU’s single market and customs union, and the European Court of Justice, in the name of “sovereignty”.
Diplomatic tensions between London and Brussels have risen in the wake of Brexit.
Britain argues the EU should show greater flexibility in a range of areas, most notably when it comes to Northern Ireland.
The European Commission has said it is willing to do so, but only where there is no possibility of undermining its single market.
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WHO report on health spending calls on governments not to repeat mistakes
New report from WHO on health spending calls on governments not to repeat past mistakes when rebuilding from COVID-19
A new report from the WHO Barcelona Office for Health Systems Financing has highlighted the need for governments to maintain a higher level of public spending on health for the wider benefit of society despite expected budgetary pressures following the pandemic.
The report, “Spending on health in Europe: entering a new era”, is the first in-depth analysis of health spending across all 53 Member States of the WHO European Region over nearly 2 decades.
In a foreword to the report, WHO Regional Director for Europe Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge and Director of WHO/Europe’s Division of Country Health Policies and Systems Dr Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat write: “To avoid the mistakes of the past, governments will need to invest more public funding in health now and in the years ahead – even as they face growing budgetary pressure – to address the backlog created by disruption to health services, mitigate the negative health effects of foregone care, unemployment and poverty, and strengthen preparedness for future shocks.”
Dr Kluge and Dr Azzopardi-Muscat add, “Governments also need to pay attention to how health system resources are used, to avoid any further widening of inequalities.”
Health spending as a political choice
Analysing countries across the Region, the report finds that spending on health grew prior to the 2008 financial crisis. However, a significant shift away from public spending on health in response to the crisis was not reversed in later years.
Between 2013 and 2018, out-of-pocket payments grew faster than public spending on health in most of the lower-middle-income countries in the Region, and in around half of the upper-middle-income and high-income countries.
Austerity in the health sector – budget cuts and coverage restrictions – has undermined national and regional progress towards universal health coverage. This has pushed health-care costs onto households, increased out-of-pocket payments, led to unmet need and financial hardship, and exacerbated socioeconomic inequalities within and across countries.
Health spending as an investment
COVID-19 has shown the importance of robust health systems and the long-term benefits of investing in the health of the population. Countries were quick to mobilize additional funds for the health system in response to the pandemic, but treating and preventing COVID-19 and addressing the impact of disruption to services will require continued investment in the years ahead.
Sustained increases in public spending on health coupled with well designed public policy can mitigate the negative effects of COVID-19 while also building health system resilience.
The report also highlights that spending on primary health care accounts for less than half of all health spending, despite being a cost-effective way to deliver health care to communities. WHO has called for an additional 1% of gross domestic product (GDP) in public funding to be spent on primary health care.
European Programme of Work
Reductions in public spending on health following the financial crisis damaged health systems. Increased public investment in health is needed in most countries to make progress towards universal health coverage and to improve health, well-being and protection from health emergencies – goals that are central to the European Programme of Work 2020–2025 – “United Action for Better Health in Europe”.
European Parliament to vote on Brexit trade deal Tuesday
LONDON — The European Parliament will vote to ratify the EU-U.K. Trade and Cooperation agreement on Tuesday.
The vote has been added to the agenda of next week’s plenary session, according to Jaume Duch, spokesperson for the Parliament.
MEPs will hold a debate and a consent vote accompanied by a resolution on Tuesday, just four days ahead of the end of the temporary application period on April 30.
The Parliament’s foreign affairs and trade committees voted in favor of the agreement last week, paving the way for its expected ratification by the plenary.
The deal, which has already been ratified by the U.K., conditionally came into force on December 31, 2020.
European Parliament agrees to April vote on EU-UK trade deal
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Parliament will vote on the post-Brexit EU-UK trade deal next Tuesday after political leaders backed down on their threat not to ratify the agreement over British changes to Northern Ireland trading arrangements, a parliament source said.
Parliament faces an end-April deadline to give its approval, but has said it wanted to see Britain move on implementing the Northern Ireland protocol, part of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement covering the special position of the British-owned province.
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop, editing by Marine Strauss)
