On 18 October 2022, the Vice-president of the European Commission Maroš Šefčovič (Slovakia) presented the European Commission Work Programme 2023, titled “A Union standing firm and united”, during the European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg.
Due to a shift in the Commission’s priorities, health lost its central role in next year’s programme, compared to the 2021 and 2022 work programmes. Instead, the programme has been heavily shaped by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing energy crisis. Nonetheless, good news for the in silico medicine community is that progress on the European Health Union remains envisaged throughout 2023, with the expected announcement of the revision of the variation framework for medicines and the pending proposal of the European Health Data Space.
The presented proposals range across all six priorities of the von der Leyen Commission. The Commission’s work programme 2023 contains in total 43 new policy initiatives, 8 initiatives for regulatory simplification, 116 pending priority proposals, 1 proposal for withdrawal and 1 proposal for repeal.
Future proposals of relevance for our community are summarized in the table below:
Council recommendation on vaccine-preventable cancers | To prevent health threats and diseases before they arise. | non-legislative, Articles 168 and 292 TFEU | Q3 2023 |
Revision of the variation framework for medicines | To review the current rules setting out the procedures for post-authorisation changes to a marketing authorisation for medicines for human use. To make the lifecycle management of medicinesmore efficient. | non-legislative | Q4 2023 |
The Commission will now enter discussions with the Parliament and the Council to establish a list of joint legislative priorities for the next year.
