Health care systems in many European Union member states have proven unprepared to the emergency and should, therefore, be strengthened to comply with the European common standards, Council of Europe Secretary-General Marija Pejcinovic Buric said on Friday.

“The right to health and to equitable assess to health care is the most important right as of today. Both are set out in our conventions and guaranteed in national constitutions. We had considered that these rights were safe in Europe today but health systems in the most affected states have proven unprepared to respond to the emergency as we might have expected,” Pejcinovic Buric said at the opening session of the online St. Petersburg International Legal Forum.

“We should look to employ all our international mechanics, the European Social Charters, Moscow MEDICRIME Convention and Oviedo Convention on humanitarian rights and biomedicine, as well as the Convention on the European Pharmacopoeia, to review and strengthen states’ capacities to comply with our common standards. We are ready to assist them in this regard,” she added.

Earlier last week, Marine Le Pen, the president of the French right-wing National Rally party, said that the EU’s major structures, expected to be prepared for the epidemic, had failed to act on it.

Source: Sputnik