Following the publication of our position paper, Investing in Health: Securing EU funding for health promotion and NCD prevention in the next Multiannual Financial Framework, we invited EuroHealthNet, which contributed input to the development of the paper, to share its perspective on the priorities and opportunities ahead.
Europe has a choice to make in the upcoming negotiations over the 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF): either continue treating health as a cost to be managed only after people fall ill, or start treating it as an investment that underpins economic competitiveness. The evidence, together with the scale of the challenges facing the EU, is stacking up in favour of option two.
The scale of what’s at stake
Ill health among working-age people is already a drag on the EU economy. Overweight and the chronic diseases that come with it cost an estimated 3.3% of GDP a year, once you factor in care costs, lost productivity, and time off work.1 Additionally, cardiovascular disease alone kills 1.7 million people prematurely in the EU each year, affects 62 million people, and costs €282 billion annually. More than three-quarters of those deaths are preventable.2
Investing in prevention and health promotion has one of the strongest payback ratios there are in public health spending. One global study on cardiovascular disease prevention found that every €1 invested returns roughly €5.60 in economic benefits alone, and that is before accounting for the broader social gains.3 This shows that disease prevention is no longer just a health issue. It is an economic matter, aligned with the EU's broader priorities.
Why does the next MFF matter?
The 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework is the EU's seven-year budget plan. It sets overall spending limits and decides how much of that funding goes to priority areas like cohesion, research, health, competitiveness, and social policy. Much of that funding flows down into Member States' own plans, including the National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs). So whatever gets prioritised — or overlooked — in the MFF now shapes what can be funded across the EU for the next seven years.
This is why EuroHealthNet is backing JA PreventNCD’s statement calling on EU institutions and Member States to guarantee clear, adequate, and measurable funding for prevention and health promotion in the next MFF. It’s a genuinely practical ask: earmark health promotion within the Competitiveness Fund, embed prevention and health promotion funding into Partnership Plans, protect a dedicated health strand in Horizon Europe, and build in indicators that actually track prevention and equity outcomes, not just how much gets spent.
Where EuroHealthNet stands
For EuroHealthNet, this is not a new position. It reflects what we have consistently called for throughout the MFF discussion: a healthy population is core economic infrastructure, with the same priority and leverage as energy, digital connectivity or transport. Competitiveness and public health aren’t competing priorities to be traded off against each other. A resilient workforce is a precondition for the growth that the rest of the budget is trying to secure.
It's also why we can’t separate prevention and health promotion funding from health equity. The return on investment in prevention is strongest, and lasts longer, when it reaches the people and regions facing the greatest health gaps, not just the population overall. Building that equity lens into how EU funds are designed and measured is as much part of ‘investing in health’ as the funding levels themselves.
The economic case for prevention has rarely been this strong, or this well-evidenced. The opportunity before EU institutions now is to ensure the next budget cycle actually reflects it.
References
1 OECD (2019), The Heavy Burden of Obesity: The Economics of Prevention, OECD Health Policy Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/67450d67-en.
2 OECD (2025), The State of Cardiovascular Health in the European Union, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ea7a15f4-en.
3 Watkins DA, Nugent R, Saxenian H, et al. (2018), "Investing in non-communicable diseases: an estimation of the return on investment for prevention and treatment services", The Lancet, 391(10134), 2071–2078. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)30665-2 Note: Benefit-cost ratio of 5.6 for economic returns (10.9 including social returns), modelled for cardiovascular disease prevention interventions across the 20 countries with the highest global NCD burden. This is not an EU-specific study.
About EuroHealthNet
EuroHealthNet is the Partnership of public health bodies building a healthier future for all by addressing the determinants of health and reducing inequalities. Its focus is on preventing disease and promoting good health by looking within and beyond the health care system.
EuroHealthNet contributed input to the development of JA PreventNCD's position paper Investing in Health: Securing EU funding for health promotion and NCD prevention in the next Multiannual Financial Framework and supports its call for stronger investment in health promotion and disease prevention in the EU's next long-term budget.
