The National Recovery & Resilience Plans According to Citizens’ Perspective: will the EU regain its Leadership in Health? From the Italian Case History to the XVI European Patients’ Rights Day

Healthcare, well-being, and a healthy lifestyle are vital for all of us. In this regard, the engagement of European citizens is key to improve the health system and it is necessary to provide a leading role to the people, the communities, intermediate bodies such as Patients' Advocacy Groups (PAGs), citizens organizations involved in healthcare issues and, more generally, to all actors that promote health as a common good. European institutions struggle to translate into concrete actions the many times highlighted principle relating to the involvement of actors of the civil society and PAGs in the management of health issues. The need to close the gap between the principles affirmed and the real involvement is even more serious when discussing about the management of serious cross-border threats to health. In line with its standing point, the civic organization Cittadinanzattiva [1], being deeply involved in health issues that promote civic participation in the policy-making activities both at the national level in Italy and, through its EU branch Active Citizenship Network (ACN) [2], also at the EU level, is working – of course not alone – to promote civic participation in the drafting and implementation process of National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs), with relevant political goals already achieved. As the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) [3] is approaching, emphasizing the great contribution of civil society to the success of the EU recovery plans is urgent and essential, now more than ever.