📅 15 October 2026 | 🕐 10.00- 12:00 | 📍 European Parliament, Room ANTALL 4Q2 (BRU), Brussels
Hosted by Tiemo Wölken MEP and EU-JAMRAI 2
About the event
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is often seen only as a health problem. It is also an economic one. Drug-resistant infections keep workers off the job, drive up healthcare costs, threaten livestock and food production, and weaken the resilience of our economies. Even so, AMR is still largely missing from national and European budget discussions, resilience strategies and economic governance frameworks.
This meeting brings together Members of the European Parliament, economic and public health experts, and representatives from across the EU to ask a simple question: what would change if we treated AMR as the economic risk it already is?
What we will discuss
- The economic cost of AMR. We will present the latest data on the economic impact of AMR in the EU and across key sectors, including healthcare, food, agriculture and the workforce, and make the case that investing in prevention today avoids much higher costs tomorrow.
- AMR as a macro-economic risk. The EU makes economic forecasts and sets budgetary rules for the future, yet the financial threat of failing antibiotics is largely absent from these calculations. We will look at whether AMR should be treated like other structural risks to growth and debt sustainability, and what it would take to include it in the European Commission’s analysis.
- The way forward. We will explore how existing EU financial and economic policy tools could be used to reframe AMR and speed up action, so that political momentum is built now rather than forced by a crisis.
Speakers
- Marie Cécile Ploy – Coordinator EU JAMRAI 2
- Michele Cecchini – Head of Public Health OECD
- Anthony McDonnell – Policy Fellow Global Health Policy Team, Center for Global Development
- Milka Sokolovic – Director General, European Public Health Alliance
Registration
Please register until the 9th October using the following link:
