Commission calls Cancer Plan a success, but what do their officials say?

Publicly, the European Commission continues to celebrate Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan as a flagship of EU health policy, but inside the institution, the Commission’s officials are far less cheerful.

Transcripts of interviews to which EU Reporter has had exclusive access reveal a grimmer picture of a Plan that is struggling to deliver on its ambition, hampered by limited national uptake, fragmented implementation, and internal co-ordination gaps.

When the Plan was launched in 2021 with €4 billion from the current EU budget, it was meant to bring Europe’s fragmented cancer efforts together: linking screening, treatment, prevention and research under a single umbrella. Now, Commission officials admit behind closed doors to the consultancy Open Evidence that progress has been limited, to say the least.

DG SANTE staff note that smaller countries “lack the manpower to benefit from all [the EU actions],” while others are “still learning how to absorb” the  “sheer number” of cancer initiatives funded under EU4Health. In some national administrations, “only 8 people” are responsible for all cancer-related policy work.

At the same time, the Plan’s monitoring framework remains undeveloped. Current indicators, such as incidence or mortality, are “too general and too top level,” making it “difficult to attribute causes and effects” or “really derive much of an impact”. Even as the Plan enters its midpoint, there is no coherent way to measure what it has achieved. “We introduced some indicators in the implementation plan of the mission but are not using them now.”

The cooperation between DG SANTE and DG RTD, designed to align research and health policy, has also faltered. Officials describe it as “less active” than in the early phases of the Plan, with projects under Horizon Europe and EU4Health running in parallel rather than feeding into each other. One interviewee admitted that “we just found out recently that DG REFORM is also working on the cancer registry”, underscoring silos within the Commission.

The European Court of Auditors announced this year an audit into the Cancer Plan. It is not strange for ECA to audit EU initiatives with a big financial envelope, but why the Cancer Plan was chosen over other actions is unclear. Usually, auditors examine policies with higher budgets, most recently the EU’s microchips strategy. “Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan is thus a very ambitious endeavour. Is it an effective means to fight against cancer? That is what the audit intends to find out,” ECA has said.

Meanwhile, the Commission continues to celebrate the Plan as a model for EU policy on health. Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi has drawn parallels with the upcoming EU Cardiovascular Health Plan, also in an effort to secure budget for health in the next MFF currently under negotiation. Privately, SANTE officials are less convinced: “I am not sure if additional funding would help, as we discussed the issue of absorption by MS of all the actions.”

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