CESI@noon: Tackling EU health workforce shortages through the EPSR

CESI CONFERENCE ON ‘HEALTH WORKFORCE SHORTAGES AND THE EPSR’
DRAFT AGENDA

Venue & date: Brussels and online via Zoom, November 18, 2025
Registration link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/4r1WXKoNR3-oUaxK2SjjUA
Simultaneous interpretation: EN–ES (tbc)

CESI@noon: From principles to practice: Tackling EU healthcare workforce shortages with the European Pillar of Social Rights

Europe faces a looming health workforce crisis, with shortages projected to hit 4.1 million by 2030. Understaffing threatens workers, patients, and the sustainability of public health systems.

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This CESI@noon event will discuss the European Parliament’s own-initiative report calling for an EU health workforce crisis plan, and will explore how the pledges of European Pillar of Social Rights remain unfulfilled due to understaffing, work overload, gender inequalities, inadequate equipment and infrastructure, and not least brain drain.

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The European Pillar of Social Rights’ Principle 16 on Health Care stipulates timely access to affordable, preventive, and curative healthcare of good quality, whereas Principle 10 underscores workers’ rights to a high level of health and safety and a working environment that supports their professional needs and continued participation in the labour market.

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Addressing workforce shortages is therefore not only a societal necessity but also a matter of fundamental social rights for health care workers in the EU.

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Provisional agenda (all speakers to be confirmed):

10:30     Welcome address & introduction
Klaus Heeger, Secretary General of CESI‍

10:40     Healthcare challenges and pressures in Europe: Trends and causes

Jorge Cabrita, Eurofound (tbc)

Gorica Djokic, President of the Serbian Trade Union of Doctors and Pharmacists and CESI Vice-President of CESI’s Expert Commission ‘Healthcare Services’

Milena Angelova, Member of the European Economic and Social Committee (tbc)

Joséfine Declaye, Policy Officer, European Specialist Nurses Organisation (ESNO)

11:00     Delivering the European Pillar of Social Rights: Implications for health care systems

NN, European Commission

11:10     The European Parliament report on ‘EU health workforce crisis plan: sustainability of healthcare systems and employment and working conditions in the healthcare sector’

Paul De Raeve, Secretary General at European Federation of Nurses Associations (EFN)

András Tivadar Kulja, Member of the European Parliament (Group of the European People's Party, Hungary) (tbc)

Paloma Repila, President of CESI’s Expert Commission ‘Healthcare Services’, (SATSE)

11:30     The way forward - Exchange with the speakers and audience

12:00     Light lunch