Every semester, two diplomatic teams hand over the baton at the helm of the Council of the European Union. This is not a mere institutional formality. The rotating presidency plays a decisive role in the political and legislative orientation of the Twenty-Seven, setting the pace of negotiations, prioritizing certain files and relegating others to the background depending on the real possibilities of reaching consensus. This is precisely what will happen next July, when Cyprus hands over the baton to Ireland, a country that arrives in Brussels with a health agenda marked by a cross-cutting objective: to make health a key factor in economic competitiveness for the European Union.
The new presidency considers that health policy can no longer be analyzed exclusively from the perspective of citizen well-being. On the contrary, Dublin intends to integrate public health into the core of the community's economic and security strategy. Under the leadership of the Irish Minister of Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill the Irish government will argue that resilient health systems are an indispensable condition for guaranteeing European productivity, innovation, and strategic autonomy.
According to drafts of the documents detailing Ireland's priorities for the next Council presidency, to which DEMÓCRATA has had access, the Irish Executive will promote the idea that a healthy population constitutes a first-class economic asset. The thesis it intends to convey to its European partners is that investments in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment should not be seen solely as public spending, but as tools capable of reducing future costs, strengthening the labor market, and stimulating technological innovation.
Women's health, at the center
One of the main novelties of the Irish health agenda will be the prominence given to certain pathologies that specifically affect women. In this area, the presidency intends to place endometriosis at the center of the European debate, a chronic disease that affects millions of women across the continent and which, according to various studies, continues to be underdiagnosed.
Endometriosis occurs when tissue similar to the lining of the uterus begins to grow outside of it, affecting organs such as the ovaries, fallopian tubes, bladder, or even the intestines. Beyond its medical consequences, Ireland wants to focus on the significant economic and labor impact of this disease, especially in terms of absenteeism, productivity, and quality of life. The objective is to promote broader political recognition of these pathologies within European public health strategies, linking them directly to debates on competitiveness, the labor market, and demographic sustainability.
The Irish presidency also aims to accelerate several legislative files considered strategic for European industrial competitiveness. Among these are the negotiations on the Biotechnology Regulation I and the Directive on the placing on the market of genetically modified micro-organisms, two initiatives aimed at facilitating scientific innovation and strengthening the European biomedical research ecosystem.
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Work will also focus on the practical application of the so-called Pharmaceutical Package, one of the most ambitious regulatory reforms promoted by Brussels in recent decades. This set of regulations seeks to modernize European pharmaceutical legislation, expedite patient access to innovative treatments, and strengthen the industry's competitiveness against the United States and China.
In parallel, Ireland wants to advance the update of the regulatory framework applicable to human organs and tissues intended for transplants and medical treatments, an area that is particularly sensitive from a health and ethical perspective. In the regulatory field, Dublin will also advocate for the simplification of the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) and the In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR). The objective is to reduce administrative burdens, streamline certification procedures, and facilitate the arrival of new technologies in the European market without compromising safety standards.
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Regarding the pharmaceutical package, the priority will be to accelerate its implementation and ensure that future EU rules translate into tangible benefits for both patients and the European industrial fabric.
The Critical Medicines Act gains weight
Another of the files that will receive a relevant political boost will be the future Law on Critical Medicines, conceived as a response to the vulnerabilities detected in pharmaceutical supply chains in recent years.
The regulation, which already has preliminary political backing among European co-legislators, aims to establish a legal framework capable of guaranteeing the continued supply of essential medicines within the Union. To this end, it contemplates joint purchasing mechanisms, solidarity tools among Member States, incentives for European industrial production, and new public procurement criteria aimed at strengthening the resilience of supply chains.
The initiative fully aligns with the open strategic autonomy strategy promoted by Brussels, especially in a context marked by geopolitical tensions and Europe's growing dependence on third countries for the manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients.
AI in pharmacies?
The digital transformation of the healthcare sector will also occupy a prominent place on the Irish agenda. Sources consulted indicate that the presidency will prioritize the implementation of the European Health Data Space Regulation, one of the central pieces of the community digital strategy. The objective is to guarantee the secure exchange of health data, strengthen interoperability between national systems, and create a framework of trust that facilitates both research and the provision of cross-border medical services.
The presidency considers that the correct exploitation of clinical data can become an engine of innovation for the entire European economy. Therefore, Ireland also wants to promote regulatory frameworks that facilitate the development of solutions based on artificial intelligence applied to healthcare, always maintaining high standards of safety, traceability, and human supervision.
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The challenge will be to find a balance between innovation and patient protection, an issue that will continue to gain weight in the coming years as the use of algorithmic tools in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases increases.
The experience accumulated after the COVID-19 pandemic continues to condition a large part of European health priorities. In this context, Ireland will seek to accelerate negotiations on the future Regulation on Preparedness and Response to Health Emergencies, promoted by the European Commission with the aim of improving community coordination in the face of future cross-border threats.
The intention is to strengthen the joint response capacity of the Member States through more agile procedures, more robust coordination mechanisms, and better strategic planning of critical resources.
This philosophy will also be transferred to the debates on the European Civil Protection Mechanism, where Dublin intends to deepen the integration of European health capabilities to deal with crises, natural disasters, or large-scale emergencies.
The main stumbling block: tobacco taxation
However, one of the most complex health files will continue to be the reform of the Directive on Tobacco Taxation.
The lack of consensus among Member States recently forced the Cypriot presidency to withdraw this matter from the agenda of the next Ecofin Council. For months, negotiating teams held intense technical and diplomatic discussions to try to bring positions closer. Nevertheless, divergences persist and several governments continue to maintain red lines that are difficult to overcome.
Diplomatic sources acknowledge that, despite some specific progress made in the latest negotiation rounds, the unanimity required to approve the reform remains out of reach.
From the Cypriot presidency, they maintain that all possible alternatives were explored to save the text, including compromise proposals aimed at balancing the opposing interests of the different community partners. However, the deadlock ended up prevailing just before the institutional handover to Ireland.
The currently frozen proposal is part of the European strategy to fight cancer and proposes a profound transformation of the tobacco market over the next decade. The approach rests on three fundamental pillars: regulatory harmonization, increase in minimum taxes, and automatic indexing of levies to inflation.
The stated objective is to reduce consumption, combat smuggling, and minimize existing distortions between national markets. The latest drafts prepared by the Cypriot presidency contemplated a gradual tightening of fiscal pressure. For conventional cigarettes, the current mixed system—composed of a specific per-unit component, an ad valorem component linked to the sales price, and the corresponding VAT—was maintained, although significantly raising the minimum thresholds required.
The proposal stipulated that the total tax burden should represent at least 60% of the weighted average retail price, also setting an absolute minimum threshold of 200 euros per 1,000 cigarettes.
With this, Brussels aims to reduce the enormous price differences that currently exist between Member States, a circumstance that the Commission considers one of the main incentives for smuggling and cross-border purchases within the single market.
The Social Agenda
From a broader public health perspective, Ireland also aims to boost discussions related to substance use and harm reduction policies. The presidency will promote exchanges of good practices within the framework of the future European Union Drugs Strategy 2026-2030, addressing both prevention and risk reduction mechanisms associated with consumption.
Among the planned initiatives is the organization of a specific "mutual learning" meeting for national coordinators, focused on the relationship between problematic drug use and homelessness. The issue is gaining increasing relevance in numerous European capitals, where local authorities observe greater interaction between social exclusion, mental health problems, and addiction. Ireland believes that an effective response requires closer coordination between health, social, and housing policies, an approach that is likely to gain prominence during the next six months at the helm of the Council of the European Union.