European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (cepPolicyBrief COM2020 726)

"Increasing capacities and pooling expertise will help to respond more quickly and efficiently to communicable disease outbreaks in the future. Digital platforms will make it easier e.g. to monitor a pandemic," cep jurist Patrick Stockebrandt says, who wrote the cepPolicyBrief with co-author Nathalja Nolen.

Stockebrandt says it is necessary and important that the ECDC will at least be allowed to make non-binding recommendations. "This will help the Member States to target communicable diseases more effectively" Nolen emphasises. "That the European Union wants to create common standards is to be welcomed. The network of EU reference laboratories will have a positive impact on disease response," the cep expert emphasises. The ability to issue non-binding recommendations does not interfere with the responsibility of the Member States for their health sector which is guaranteed under primary law.