First Covid, now McKinsey - how austerity hit EU healthcare
While private hospitals increased, numbers of intensive care beds fell, as they are less profitable for private companies (Photo: gob.mx)
Brussels, 28. Jan, 07:13
From hospitals to care homes, the outsourcing and privatisation of healthcare – in combination with various austerity policies promoted by the European Commission during the past decade – have significantly degraded EU member states capacity to deal effectively with COVID-19 - needlessly costing extra lives.
A new report by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) clearly shows neoliberal reforms weakened public healthcare systems all over Europe, with dramatic consequences in terms of Covid-19 death, disability rates, and many other social impacts.
| UPDATED: 13:56, Wed, Jan 27, 2021
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Speaking at the virtual Davos World Economic Forum on Tuesday, the German Chancellor downplayed the US President s call for Europe to pick sides between the US and China. She said: “I would very much wish to avoid the building of blocs. I don’t think it would do justice to many societies if we were to say this is the United States and over there is China and we are grouping around either the one or the other.
| UPDATED: 19:29, Wed, Jan 27, 2021
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Germany will later this year hold its national elections to vote-in a new Chancellor. It comes as Angela Merkel, after a 15-year stint, readies to leave the post. Centrist Armin Laschet this month succeeded her as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, who has described himself as the continuity candidate offering no radical upheaval of what Mrs Merkel has established.
| UPDATED: 11:57, Tue, Jan 26, 2021
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The German Chancellor said the threat posed by new coronavirus variants spreading at a faster pace than the original meant the country was sitting on a powder keg . Mrs Merkel warned things could easily turn for the worse in the coming weeks. The German leader also said the reopening of the retail sector planned for mid-February may now be delayed, warning it was not assured .
| UPDATED: 16:50, Thu, Jan 21, 2021
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Germany’s Chancellor last year announced her plan to step down from the position she has occupied since 2005. However, former German MEP Hans-Olaf Henkel suggested it was far from impossible that she could reverse her decision, especially in the wake of Armin Laschet’s narrow victory over Friedrich Merz which saw him crowned the leader of her Christian Democrat Union Party.