'Toothless’ EU agency was behind Covid curve because of data gaps – EU Ombudsman

The inquiry highlighted gaps in how the ECDC collated data from member states as the public health crisis unfolded and how the agency did not have the necessary powers to compel countries to provide information. Picture:Gareth Chaney/Collins

An EU agency set up to monitor disease outbreaks was behind the Covid-19 curve in the early stages of the pandemic and needs greater powers to collect data from member states, the EU Ombudsman has said.

European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly was commenting in the wake of a six-month inquiry into the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The inquiry highlighted gaps in how the ECDC collated data from member states as the public health crisis unfolded and how the agency did not have the necessary powers to compel countries to provide information.

This resulted in the agency providing “positive assessments” in the early phase of the pandemic that EU members were well equipped to manage the virus but which quickly became “outdated” as the situation escalated and worsened.

The Ombudsman said the ECDC was “wrong” and “behind the curve” in its initial assessments of the threat to public health primarily due to information and data gaps and its inability to independently collect critical data from member states.

National authorities, she said, “struggled” to report complete data to the ECDC or did not answer its appeals for data.

“When the pandemic struck it [ECDC] simply did not have the information it needed – whether it was about ICU capacity, testing capacity, the hospital capacity of the member states – in order to give the sort of advice that was needed to mitigate the crisis right from the start,” the Ombudsman told RTÉ radio.

European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly: 'When the pandemic struck it [ECDC] simply did not have the information it needed – whether it was about ICU capacity, testing capacity, the hospital capacity of the member states – in order to give the sort of advice that was needed to mitigate the crisis right from the start.'

Ms O’Reilly has urged European legislators to enhance the agency’s powers to collect information so that its response to any future pandemics would be strengthened.

“Information is power and without that information any agency such as the ECDC cannot give the sort of timely and full forensic advice that it needs to give at times like this,” she said.

“The member states form the board of the ECDC, they control the ECDC, so they will have to decide whether it remains toothless or whether it will actually live up to the very fancy title that it was given when it was created back in 2003,” she added.

The inquiry also found that not all assessments of the unfolding pandemic were made public, prompting calls for greater transparency.

Greater transparency was vital, the Ms O'Reilly said, to maintain public trust as EU members roll out Covid vaccines: “This public trust is essential and the ECDC will continue to play a central role gathering and publicising information on the vaccine rollout”.

The EU Ombudsman is also looking into how the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the European Medicines Agency and the Council have responded to the pandemic.