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Europe’s healthcare - A right or a business model? MEPs face off in The Ring
In this special edition of The Ring, broadcast from the Euronews Health Summit, MEPs Stine Bosse (Renew Europe) and Tilly Metz (The Greens/EFA) go head-to-head to debate who should pay for European health innovation.
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2026/03/18/europes-healthcare-a-right-or-a-business-model-meps-face-off-in-the-ring
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In this special edition of The Ring, broadcast from the Euronews Health Summit, MEPs Stine Bosse (Renew Europe) and Tilly Metz (The Greens/EFA) go head-to-head to debate who should pay for European health innovation.
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2026/03/18/europes-healthcare-a-right-or-a-business-model-meps-face-off-in-the-ring
Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages
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NewsTranscript
00:08Welcome to The Ring, to this very special edition broadcasting live here from downtown
00:14Brussels. My name is Maeve McMahon and I'm one of the presenters of The Ring, which is
00:19our weekly debating show that sees MEPs go face to face on some of the most pressing
00:24issues of our time. The topic that we're jumping into today is healthcare and who should pay.
00:32Europe is facing spiraling healthcare costs driven by an aging population and chronic diseases.
00:38At the same time, demand for new treatments is growing, raising crucial questions. Who should
00:44pay for healthcare innovation and to what extent is health treated as a business? One key pressure
00:51point is the cost of new drugs and vaccines. Should the EU coordinate pricing for essential
00:57medicines to ensure equal access across member states while also having tools to intervene
01:02in production and distribution during crises? Or should pricing and supply remain a national
01:08responsibility to prevent straining healthcare budgets and weakening market incentives?
01:14Tax debates in the pharmaceutical sector further highlight concerns about how much the industry
01:20should profit from public investment. Europe also faces longer-term challenges. Its healthcare
01:25system spends far more on treatment than prevention. The real question is not only how Europe will pay
01:32for healthcare, but what kind of healthcare system it ultimately wants to protect.
01:38Let's meet our panelists.
01:41Tilly Metz, a Luxembourgish MEP from the Greens European Free Alliance Group.
01:46She has been a member of the European Parliament since 2018 and serves on the Committee on the
01:52Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. In debates on EU health policy, she has advocated for
01:58stronger European cooperation on public health and greater transparency in the pharmaceutical sector.
02:04We need a strong commitment to solidarity over privatization and to high-quality care over
02:10commercialization, she said. Stine Boss, a Danish MEP from the Liberal Renew Europe Group. Elected to the
02:18European Parliament in 2024, she works on economic and industry-related issues and has spoken about the
02:24importance of maintaining Europe's competitiveness and innovation capacity. In discussions about the
02:29pharmaceutical sector, she has emphasized the need to balance strong research incentives with
02:34sustainable healthcare systems. We must do much more, better and cheaper together, including by
02:40creating a single market for clinical trials and by taking more decisions at the European level, she said.
02:50Welcome! So lovely to have you with us here for this very special edition of The Ring.
02:55So the idea here, ladies, is to give our viewers back home a bit of a taste of what exactly
03:01you get
03:01up to inside that European Parliament chamber, here in Brussels and also in Strasbourg. Sometimes you fire
03:07questions at each other, sometimes it gets a little bit heated. Today, as you know, we're focusing on
03:13healthcare and the future of it right here in the European Union and who, of course, should pay. So Tilly,
03:19if we can
03:19start with you on that very, very pertinent question, who should be paying for the future of healthcare in
03:24Europe? Should it be us, the patients? Should it be pharma, the governments, big tech? Yeah, but if we look
03:31what the situation is right now, we see there's a lot of public funding indeed going in research, but there's
03:38also the patient that is paying. So you could even say that the patient right now is paying twice. He
03:43is
03:44paying first with taxes, which go down to funds, and then he pays again a price at the pharmacy. So
03:52what we
03:53need for sure is at the EU level, but also at national level, more public investment. Yeah.
03:59Well, it actually all connects. And I do agree that there is an issue on how do we, how do
04:06we look
04:06into the future? What is the construction? Is it all, you know, everybody has access to healthcare,
04:13or is it a different model? That has to be debated. But at the end of the day, it all
04:18starts and it all
04:19ends at the end of the day that we have a strong and competitive pharmaceutical sector. And then we can
04:25discuss who pays. And that's an important point. Of course, Tillimeth, if you look at the data,
04:32one in every two medicines, this is back 25 years ago, was invented or discovered right here in Europe.
04:38Now it's only one in six. What went wrong? Exactly. I mean, if we go more to privatization
04:44and more leaving all the leadership to the pharma industry, we see that it doesn't work. Indeed,
04:50we still have innovation in Europe. We still have, but we are not really scaling up. But if we look
04:56innovation and there is no real added value for the patients, that's something we need to do better.
05:02So it's up to public authorities to take back their leadership and their responsibility. I mean,
05:10if we go more and more in private healthcare, there is a huge risk of even more commercialization
05:17of access to healthcare and of commodifying medicines and healthcare.
05:22Would you agree with that point, Senebos?
05:24Yes, I do agree. But I don't think that a strong pharmaceutical sector is the opposite of having
05:31a totally sane and fantastic healthcare sector as such. I think these two things go hand in hand.
05:39But that is, of course, a question of funding. First of all, importantly enough, funding for the
05:44pharmaceutical sector. And then, of course, who pays? Is it tax paid? Is it universal access to
05:51treatment and to medicines? Or is it a private sector that we see growing? And there, I think
05:56we will have to face that there will be a blend. I am a strong believer in a strong universal
06:03healthcare
06:05sector that makes sure that there is access for everybody. I mean, we know that the private sector
06:12and the objective of the private sector are not necessarily aligned with what is really the
06:18public health's need. But I agree, we need a strong pharma sector. We need to have manufacturing back
06:26in Europe and we need to have the conditions. But the incentives for the pharma industry must not rely
06:34only on intellectual property rights. There are other models, other alternatives of incentives.
06:42There needs to be a better coordination from the public authority in order to make it more equal.
06:48And this issue of scaling up, how can we do better here? I mean, in Europe, we're great at research,
06:53we're great in the lab, but getting it to market then is always the big challenge.
06:56Yeah, and there I tend to disagree. So without letting go of the security level for our citizens,
07:04we should base much more on our EMMA and less on our national entities. Because if you look at it,
07:12it is 578 days from the approval of a medicine in EMMA, till it reaches the patient.
07:22And on the European medicine agency, we'll come back to that point.
07:25I didn't say that it should not be the European medicine agency. I'm very pro-European. On
07:29contrary, we need better cooperation between the member states and that can only be done at European
07:35level. I mean, on that I agree with you. And is the European Union ready for the next big pandemic?
07:41Because we know it's coming. I mean, we remember those terrible days of COVID and we're being warned
07:45that the next pandemic is around the corner. Sinebos, is the EU ready for this? No. I mean, we are
07:51more
07:51prepared than we were. I mean, we have learned and the institutions are also now stronger and health
07:57is a stronger issue. You know, the fact that we now have the health committee and it's a full
08:03committee and so all these things point in the right direction. But that's not reassuring our viewers,
08:07just having a committee. No, I agree. And here I'm back to that we need also a stronger collaboration
08:13between countries within the union. We need links also for ongoing health care, not only on the
08:21on the innovation side, but also on the delivery side, also between the hospitals. There's so many
08:27things that we can do a lot better and cheaper together if we work pan-European on these subjects.
08:34But I think one thing that we definitely learned from the pandemic is that we are over reliant to
08:39the pharma industry. So we need the public sector to take more responsibilities again and to have
08:45a better coordination to be too reliant to the pharma industry. I mean, that gives a lot of insecurities
08:52also regarding the supply chain, regarding the transparency on the real coast on research and development.
08:58I mean, I'm not against a strong pharma industry, but we must definitely also consider to have a
09:06European infrastructure on research and on production also of medicine. And I think we need to be ambitious
09:14there in order not to be too reliant and dependent only on the private sector, where we all agree that
09:22they have different objectives and that is also perfectly okay. I mean, as I say, they are not
09:28necessarily aligned with what is really an added value of the medication. That's why
09:33there are certain sectors like the orphan medicines, but also the antibiotics, where the pharma industry
09:39is not really interested because it's not really financially interested. So the objectives are different
09:45and that's why we need a stronger public leadership of public authorities.
09:50That's the view from Terry Metz. Let's hear your view there.
09:52You might have recalled that I'm not a socialist, but I do have a lot of social responsibility within the
10:00way I think about our citizens. So I cannot see, Tilly, that we should go for a fantastic
10:08publicly owned pharmaceutical sector. I think we need a strong, privately owned, privately financed
10:16pharmaceutical sector, who can see the benefits of staying in Europe, developing in Europe and
10:21delivering in Europe. And we also, of course, want to hear from you. You can always write to us
10:25at the ring at uranus.com. We'll come back to it. Okay.
10:32Now it is time for our viewers to get a real taste of inside the chamber when MEPs actually fire
10:37questions at each other. So now I'd like you to start with your first question for Tilly Metz.
10:42Well, Tilly, I just want to know, how on earth are you going to make sure that we can be
10:49able from
10:50Europe to deliver the best, the newest medicines, the fastest to our citizens? What is your, what is
10:59your prescription for that? I think it's very clear that we need to give incentives to the pharma industry
11:06and, on the other hand, to have kind of safe net by a public infrastructure. In order to have innovation
11:14and to guarantee also accessibility to innovation to everybody, we need to put conditions on this
11:22public funding and we need public authorities to play their role on asking accountability to the
11:30pharma industry and on asking transparency on the R&D costs, but also on how they develop their prices.
11:39I mean, as I said at the very beginning, it cannot be that the patient pays two times or three
11:44times,
11:45once by the data, once by the taxes that he pays, and then again a high price at the pharmacy.
11:52Are you satisfied with that answer or would you like to follow up?
11:55No, because I still see that there is a high risk with all your good ideas, some of them we
12:00can agree on,
12:01but there is a high risk that the pharmaceutical sector would look to other grounds and say, you know,
12:07it's much more attractive to us to develop and to invest in the US, for example, so bye-bye.
12:14Do you agree with the US system where indeed the pharma industry wants to put very much higher prices?
12:22I mean, that's what they want, that's why they are attracted by the market in the US.
12:25Is that the model that we should aim at? No. Where only an elite can offer treatment and have
12:32innovation access and innovative healthcare? No, I think we must definitely take our responsibility
12:39and that is one of the lessons learned from the pandemic. And that is, Stina, that's what we are
12:44working on. The Critical Medicines Act is exactly what we are doing there. We are making that the EU
12:50takes more responsibility in coordination, what is critical medicine for the citizens,
12:57and what is really also of an added value, and how we can bring back manufacturing again back to Europe.
13:03That's what we are working on, on the Critical Medicines Act.
13:06And our viewers can read more about that Critical Medicines Act on yournews.com. But now,
13:10Tilly Metz, it is time for you to address your very first question to Stine Boss.
13:13Yeah, but my very first question, I said it already a little bit, is like,
13:17do you agree, in order to have accessibility and affordability on medicine, that we need to have
13:25more transparency on coast? And that is meaning, when we give public funding to the pharma industry,
13:31that we need to put conditions on this public funding. Conditions like supply chain, transparency
13:40on coast, etc.
13:42I think first of all, and I will be repeating myself slightly, so bear with me. I think that it's
13:47the
13:48starting point will be that we have a strong pharmaceutical sector. And you might not agree,
13:52you think you jump right into, it has to be state-owned and it has to be state-funded. I'm
13:57on another page there.
13:59Then having said that, then I agree that there are areas, the Critical Medicines Act is a good example,
14:05but there are also other areas where we have to think differently, as Europeans, but also as countries.
14:12And that's why this thing about the nearly 600 days to approval, that we have to get out. We need
14:20to make
14:20sure that the country's level of approval is not there. It doesn't make any difference. And then on top of
14:28that,
14:28if we say to ourselves that there's an 80 percent difference between the countries of the accessibility
14:34to medicines, of course that cannot be so. So we have a huge issue at our hands to level this
14:41out
14:41between countries and to protect our universal health care. But that is only protected if we have
14:48earnings. Earnings makes taxes. Taxes makes the money to actually finance health care.
14:55I know you had another long list of questions for each other, but we will have to wrap it there
14:59because
14:59we've now heard from our MEPs and I would really like to bring in another voice here.
15:08I would like to bring in the voice now of the head of AstraZeneca, the CEO and Executive Director,
15:14that's Pascal Sochiot. He recently said that the pharma industry in Europe will be reduced to a shadow of
15:20itself within 15 years. He said this due to two major threats facing the pharma industry. One,
15:27pharma companies are investing heavily in the U.S. to avoid heavy taxes by the Trump administration.
15:32And of course, the other elephant in the room, China, is of course the leader in generics and a
15:37major competitor when it comes to innovation medicines. So Tony Metz, I'm curious to hear
15:42your view here on the concerns of the industry and of the CEO there of AstraZeneca.
15:47First of all, what I want to correct, because it seems like I want a hundred percent
15:53only state-owned pharma industry. That is wrong. I just want a safe net that is public in order to
16:01guarantee that we are not a hundred percent lying. But the pharma industry has an important role to play.
16:09And I spoke about incentives. I'm just convinced and we see it in the reality. If we are pragmatic,
16:15we see in the reality leaving it all to the pharma industry that the system doesn't work because we
16:21have shortage of medicine, et cetera, what I said before. But we need other incentives like the
16:27subscription model where you know if you work on research, for example on antibiotics, that you get
16:33the fixed amount of money in order to work on that. That is one model. Or a milestone model.
16:39So, if I can just bring you in here, I mean, is it scaremongering what he says there? Or would
16:45you agree
16:45with it? Because I mean, you're still the home of big pharma. And I think it's actually more serious
16:50than we can dream of. We are, and this is a little bit dramatic, but it's good on television,
16:55uh, we are under attack. I mean, our pharmaceutical sector is under attack. This idea of, uh, the, the,
17:05the nation, uh, most favored nation legislation that, uh, the administration in, in the U.S. put in place
17:12is really, really hammering us. And I'm not saying that we should give up. And I agree with you on
17:20the
17:20fact that there should be a basis coverage, obviously, for citizens in Europe, also regarding
17:25the safety, uh, of the approvals. But we have to understand that we must fight this with giving,
17:32uh, terms and conditions to our pharmaceutical sector that can compete with this, in my opinion,
17:39very mean model, and that we have to fight back. Would you agree with this, what she calls a very
17:44dramatic statement? Let's look what is at the center of our concerns. And I am allowing myself to say
17:50that it is different as a politician than from the pharma industry perspective. At the center of
17:55our concern is the patient. If you look at the situation of the patients in the United States,
18:00they are in a much worse health situation. If you look mental health, if you look, uh, obesity,
18:06if you look at a lot of diseases, suicide, everything, uh, they are in a much worse case. What do
18:12I have
18:13from innovation if it's not accessible for the large public? And in innovation, we are not bad in
18:19Europe. It's in scaling up. It's in manufacturing where we are leaking. And we have a very fragmented
18:25market as well. Sure. We have this fragmented market and we, we have, uh, really not a capitals
18:31union, right? So we need also the fact that investors should have a much, or yeah, investors
18:36and, and companies much easier access to capital to make them stay here. We also have to face, uh,
18:43particularly that no matter how we, we turn this around, that there needs to be a strong sector here.
18:49We need to understand what the problems is for the sector, try and solve them. And then of course,
18:55fight back to the U S because I agree, even long liberty is much better in Europe and we should
18:59not
18:59give up on these areas, but it is not the, on the contrary to have a strong sector. And then
19:05it comes back to
19:06the first question, who is paying? And there, I think there is a need for a truly and deep, uh,
19:13discussion on transparency on how do we actually have fun because our model, look, our model is,
19:20is like, uh, 80% gets everything right. We, we are, we covered a lot of people. That's why we
19:26buy a lot
19:27of pharmaceutical products at a cheap price in the U S. Not a lot of people are covered. So they
19:33pay much more
19:34per pill. Uh, so that makes it completely uncomparable and that we have to sit down and,
19:41and really investigate and find out also in the biotech act, how are we going to solve this?
19:46So you have a lot to do ladies, but now it is time in fact, for our next range.
20:00Now I'd like to bring in some figures. There is a big problem when it comes to Europeans having to
20:05wait for new medicines. The EU average is about 578 days. That's from approval to patient access.
20:13And it varies from country to country. Patients in some countries have to wait seven times longer than
20:19others. While the fastest is in Germany at 128 days, Portuguese patients wait the longest.
20:26So your reaction here to this inequality? Yeah, this is, this is, uh, completely how it is.
20:32But of course there is an explanation. It's not because Portugal wants to have a longer period for
20:40the population. It's about finances. It's about, can they afford it? And here we are, of course,
20:45entering into very, very difficult discussions because a country like Denmark, if you compare us
20:51to Bulgaria, to Romania, then we are in for big, uh, you know, there's a, there's a big difference
20:57and that we need to over time solve. But one of the ways to do it is to again, what
21:03we can make better
21:04and cheaper together. We must including the EMA to save all the money in all the countries.
21:10And the irony is in Germany, 128 days, that's supposed to be quick. I mean, that's a matter
21:14of life and death. If you have to wait that long for your pills. Yes. Yeah, indeed. And what we
21:18need
21:19also, uh, is we need more cooperation and European procurement so that we do, that we buy together
21:27in order also with strict timeline and also with the security on the supply chain. So that's again,
21:34we need to give more incentives. That is true, but that goes hands in hand with conditions of supply
21:41chain, et cetera. And we need, of course, on that, I agree with Cinebos. We need also to keep the
21:46EMA,
21:47the European Medicines Agency, more human resources and more resources in general in order to be more
21:53efficient. And then that we need less and less also there to rely on national, uh, issues. And
21:59should there be an EU wide pricing for essential medicines? I think at the end of the day, we will,
22:05we will get into that area. I don't, I don't see that we can avoid having some kind of, you
22:11know,
22:11more transparency and more central, uh, discussed pricing. Because now when you go to your doctor,
22:16sometimes they say, go to France, you can get. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why I say,
22:19but, but I had this conversation with, you can probably guess who it is, but it was a CEO of
22:24a
22:25large Danish pharmaceutical company. Uh, and I said to him, I don't worry when I go in a shop and
22:31I buy,
22:32like say H&M and I buy something and I can see the price in Sweden, in Germany, in France.
22:38I'm,
22:38I'm still happy being paying with my, unfortunately it's still Danish Krona. Uh, so, so I think we should be
22:45more transparent. We should be more bold, uh, together with the industry and they are also
22:51at least some of them maturing in that direction. Of course, also because of the big threat that we
22:58have just debated from the outside. Now we definitely need to put public interest is definitely more
23:03important, especially in the health sector than commercial interest. I mean, at the very end, um,
23:08um, the very famous company, pharma industry that produced drugs in, in the last moment,
23:14the price was really increasing again. Why? All the research, all the A&D was done. So we need
23:19definitely transparency. And as I said, that goes hand in hand with also public funding. It's something
23:26we owe to the taxpayers. We owe to the citizens to ask for this transparency. And especially when we speak
23:33of a fundamental right, which is access to healthcare, because as you said twice or three
23:38times or four times already here in the program, consumers are paying twice. Patients are paying
23:42twice. This is a big problem. Well, I'm not sure I agree completely on, on the fact that people are
23:48paying twice. Uh, I agree that there is a debate on how can we make this more transparent, but to
23:55be
23:55honest, I mean, the pharmaceutical sector, uh, invests a lot and they should. And I also agree that in some
24:02areas they should also be held accountable. You know, if there is public money involved, yes, I agree
24:08on that. Should we speak about the benefits that we made for the COVID-19? Yes, but look, then on
24:14the
24:14other hand, of course, there is large number of workplaces, innovation, uh, you know, attracting
24:22skilled people and, and, and all this is also beneficial for Europe. It's not only, it's not, it's not a
24:28non-sum spill, you know, uh, thing we have to look at the total. And I think it is, it
24:34would be
24:35devastating if we lost the last industry, ladies and gentlemen, the last industry where we are still
24:41close to not even, but close to on par with the U S and China. Uh, we lost digital industry.
24:49So do we want
24:50in 10 years from now to have a pharmaceutical sector where we said that's history, it's gone.
24:54And on the digital industry, that's of course, for another episode of the ring, we'll have to wrap it
24:58up there because I would love to move on to the fifth and very last round of this very special
25:03edition of the ring, which is focusing on the future of healthcare. Ladies, are you ready? Yeah.
25:11Yeah. Excellent. Because you need all your wits about you for this last segment, because it's a
25:16little bit different. You only are allowed answer using yes or no. Does that sound good?
25:22That sounds good. Great. Let's do it. Stine Boss, let's begin with you. Should the EU cap prices for
25:28essential medicines? Yes or no?
25:35Can I have a yes, but? Very briefly. Yes, but it has to be limited to very, very special situations
25:43and
25:43very special medicines. Okay. Let's see if you can do a yes or no here. Yes. It's a fundamental right.
25:48Access to
25:48fundamental medicines is a fundamental right. And another question coming for you both. Tilly,
25:53I will start with you. Should Brussels negotiate drug prices for all EU member states?
25:58I think that would be a strength if we do that. We saw the COVID-19 that the negotiating together
26:04gives us more power. So yes. So that's a yes. What about you? Yes or no on this one? Down
26:08the road,
26:09it will be a yes from me also. Should patients be waived during major health crises? Yeah, yeah,
26:15of course. I mean, the patients and this is this. You say yes, Stine? I say yes to the fact
26:20that you
26:21need, we need, we're politicians, we need to keep our main focus on the patients. No doubt about that.
26:27And now a question you're both going to love. Should medicines be the same price all across the European
26:31Union? That's a long way to go there, but that would be coherent if we listen to the European
26:39citizens that want more healthcare and also better coordinate. So that's a big yes, a resounding yes.
26:44What about you? I mean, it goes hand in hand with what I just answered. So if you have a
26:49procurement
26:50way down the road that is common European, then of course you also have a transparent common. And just
26:56finally, is the future of EU health and innovation bright? Yes. I'm a strong believer in the EU as
27:04such, and of course also in this sector, but we have to get a lot of our act together. And
27:08what about
27:08you? Yes or no? Bright future or not? Yes or no? Yes, because we should listen to the citizens and
27:14we
27:14should put more funding and not cut the funding. Do you agree with anything you've heard? Yes. She said
27:19that we should waive the intellectual property rights during a pandemic. There you go. You see,
27:23it's here on The Ring where we get people to talk, disagree, and sometimes agree. Thank you so much.
27:28And a round of applause for our two MEPs on The Ring, Stine Boss and Tillie Metz. Thank you.
27:37And thank you so much for tuning in. As always, we love to hear from you. Write to us at
27:41The Ring at Euronews.com and stay with us here on Euronews.
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