Ambitious EU funding for prevention and immunisation is crucial to reinforce Europe’s autonomy, biosecurity, economic stability, and long-term resilience
July 18, 2025
Vaccines Europe’s preliminary response to the European Commission’s 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework package
With the publication of the amended Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) on 16 July 2025, the European Union takes a continued step toward strengthening its competitiveness and health preparedness. Vaccines Europe supports EFPIA’s preliminary response to the new MFF and wishes to draw attention to immunisation-specific needs.
If the new MFF is to achieve its ambition to support long-term investments and the resilience of the EU’s economy, it must recognise immunisation as a strategic investment. Immunisation is not merely a public health tool – it is a strategic asset underpinning Europe’s open strategic autonomy, biosecurity, economic stability, and long-term resilience. The new MFF should provide appropriate funding to support the whole vaccine ecosystem – through strengthening research and development, health emergency preparedness and response, and building resilient immunisation systems. Investing in prevention and immunisation cannot wait.
The EU’s long-term budget introduces new opportunities for research and technology organisations, SMEs, startups and scale-ups, academic institutions, and industry clusters, to benefit from sustained investment in R&D. For these tools to fully support a healthier and more prosperous Europe, Vaccines Europe calls on the EU to significantly increase and ringfence dedicated funding for health and health research, particularly in prevention. Sustained investment in fundamental infectious disease research, development of novel vaccine technologies, and critical infrastructure such as clinical trial networks and health data registries, is essential to ensure the region boosts its competitiveness and builds on its long legacy of excellence in vaccine research and innovation.
Strengthening infectious disease surveillance and supporting the development of medical countermeasures are equally important for health emergency preparedness and response. Vaccines Europe welcomes the EU’s renewed commitment to health preparedness, while emphasising that the cornerstones of readiness are well-funded public health and regulatory agencies (EMA, ECDC, EDQM), robust healthcare systems and healthy populations.
Despite saving an estimated 154 million lives over the past 50 years [1] and delivering up to a 19-fold return on investment for adult immunisation programmes [2], immunisation remains critically underfunded across the EU. Currently, 77% of EU countries (including the United Kingdom) allocate less than 0.5% of their healthcare budgets to vaccination [3]. National and regional partnership plans proposed in the new MFF shall prioritise tailored reforms in the financing of national immunisation systems.
Moreover, against the backdrop of global political turbulence, some vaccine-preventable diseases are re-emerging. Immunisation programmes cannot be successful without public trust in vaccination. Vaccines Europe welcomes the creation of AgoraEU, which can be a powerful tool to help tackle disinformation and reaffirm public trust in immunisation.
Vaccines Europe remains committed to working with all relevant stakeholders to ensure that available budgets are optimally used for health, and that appropriate, sustainable funding for immunisation is secured to protect public health.
[2] https://www.ohe.org/publications/the-socio-economic-value-of-adult-immunisation-programmes/
