The European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF) was set up to respond to major natural disasters and express European solidarity to disaster-stricken regions within Europe. The Fund was created as a reaction to the severe floods in Central Europe in the summer of 2002. Since then, it has been used for 80 disasters covering a range of different catastrophic events including floods, forest fires, earthquakes, storms and drought. It has helped 24 different European countries with more than €5 billion.
In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the scope of the European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF) has been extended as of 1 April 2020 to encompass major public health emergenciesa.
EUSF funding will complement the efforts of the affected countries and cover part of their public expenditure on:
- rapidly assisting people affected by a major public health emergency caused by COVID-19 (including medical assistance)
- protecting the public against the associated risks, be that through preventing, monitoring or controlling the spread of disease, combating severe risks to public health or mitigating their impact.
The fund may cover the cost of all types of assistance to the public (medical, healthcare and civil-protection measures) and any type of measure taken to contain the disease. Specifically:
- medical assistance (including medicines, medical equipment and products, healthcare and civil protection infrastructure)
- laboratory analyses
- extraordinary measures for healthcare and medical care for the COVID-19 virus that entails extra costs
- personal protective equipment (PPE)
- special assistance to the public, especially to vulnerable groups (the elderly, people with health problems, pregnant women, single parents, etc.) ;
- special support to keep medical and other emergency service personnel operational
- development of vaccines or medicines
- improving preparedness planning capacity and related communication
- improving risk assessment and management
- sanitisation of buildings and other sites
- health checks, including checks at national borders
- all additional staff costs arising from the epidemic.