IKV organised a webinar titled “Health and Pandemics as an Area of Common Concern Between Turkey and the EU” in association with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Directorate of EU Affairs and as part of the Future of Europe and Turkey Webinar Series.

In the first part of the webinar, IKV Chairman Ayhan Zeytinoğlu and Director General for  Relations with the EU at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Başak Türkoğlu delievered their opening speeches followed by the special addresses part of the webinar in which two keynote speeches were delivered. The first speech was by Acting Deputy Director-General of the European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety John F. Ryan and the second one by Deputy Minister of Health Assoc. Prof. Tolga Tolunay. In the final part of the webinar, IKV Deputy Secretary-General M. Gökhan Kilit moderated the panel titled “How Can Turkey and the EU Work Together for a Resilient European Health Area?”. The contributors in the panel were the Director of the Digital Health Enterprise Zone of University of Bradford Dr. Liz Breen, Centre for European Policy Studies Research Fellow Nadina Iacob, Assoc. Prof. Zeynep Güldem Ökem from TOBB University of Economy and Technology and IKV Secretary General Assoc. Prof. Çiğdem Nas. 

The speakers made a point of the fact that as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic the fragility of the health systems and supply chains became more visible and that cross-border nature and the scale of the problems made the countries and their leaders realise that without cooperation it is impossible to deal with the issues arising thereof. It is discussed that lessons learned during the pandemic are valuable experiences on which to build further resilience of the global health systems and the supply systems going forward and to be more prepared for the future pandemics. Local, regional and international cooperation is said to be crucial as are the continued funding and investments for R&D and innovation. Resilience and cooperation at all levels came up as recurring themes among many others. The relationship between climate change and public health, the ‘‘One Health’’ approach, digital health solutions, global access to COVID-19 vaccines and the international pandemic treaty were among the topics touched upon within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and going forward. The current and potential areas of cooperation in the field of health both within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and future preparedness for other cross-border public health emergencies between Turkey and the EU were also discussed during the panel which came to an end after the Q&A session.?