Plenary 2

Europe's health security as strategic defence

Organised by the European Health Forum Gastein & the European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety

As Europe faces an increasingly complex security landscape marked by armed conflict, hybrid threats, attacks on critical infrastructure, climate-related risks and the growing potential for large-scale disruption, health systems have become a critical pillar of strategic resilience. This plenary will explore how health security can be integrated into Europe’s evolving defence, civil protection and crisis preparedness architecture.

Drawing on lessons from the war in Ukraine, military medical exercises and frontline healthcare experience, speakers will examine how hospitals, healthcare workforces, medical supply chains, digital and energy infrastructure, and cross-border coordination mechanisms can withstand and respond to severe disruption. The discussion will consider what health systems need from governments and European partners before and during a serious security crisis, and how civilian, health, civil protection and military capabilities can work together.

The session will also examine the role of the European Health Union in strengthening preparedness. Against the backdrop of proposals for new European security and crisis-response mechanisms, including an Emergency Security Protocol and a counter-hybrid playbook, the discussion will ask where health preparedness should sit within Europe’s emerging security architecture and how responsibilities should be shared between the EU, Member States, NATO and other partners. The central question is no longer simply how health systems prepare for health emergencies, but how health can be fully integrated into a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to European security and resilience.