ZAGREB, 28 Jan 2022 - The EU should also work on a European health union and prepare for future crises, which cannot be done without young people, European Commission Vice-President for Democracy and Demography Dubravka Šuica said in Zagreb on Friday.

Speaking at the opening of the Conference on the Future of Public Health in Croatia and Europe, Šuica said that it was important to draw lessons from the coronavirus pandemic and start working on a future European health union.

She added that the pandemic had shown that the EU could respond to crises together, citing the procurement and distribution of vaccines for all EU members as the best example.

The crisis has also shown that the EU depends too much on medicines from third countries and that it should work on strategic autonomy, self-sufficiency and own production of the necessary medicines, she said.

We have to prepare for future crises, we want to prepare Europe for the new generation, together with young people, Šuica said.

The conference, held at Zagreb's Music Academy, brought together politicians, experts and Croatian representatives at EU citizens' panels, who will discuss public health challenges from the point of view of law, medicine and communications.

The debates will serve as a contribution to the process and goals of the Conference on the Future of Europe, launched to enable citizens to participate in debates about the reform of the European Union and future EU policies.

The success of that big democratic project will largely depend on how much European citizens' recommendations and proposals are implemented.

Šuica called on EU citizens to put forward their ideas and proposals on the Conference on the Future of Europe multilingual digital platform by the end of February, which in the future could become a permanent tool in connecting citizens and politicians.

Šuica said citizens' suggestions would be taken into account when EU policies were eventually adopted, underlining the significant role of young people in that pan-European democratic project.

The Conference on the Future of Public Health in Croatia and Europe was organised by the European Parliament Office in Croatia and the European Commission Representation, in partnership with the Zagreb School of Law and Hina, and it will end with a student debate on public health in the EU.

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