Joint Statement: Deliver on Promises and Honour Commitments on Mental Health

Joint Statement. Brussels, 10th October 2024

World Mental Health Day

Deliver on promises and honour commitments on mental health

On World Mental Health Day 2024, 33 European organisations call for substantive actions to shape a Europe where everyone’s mental health thrives across their life course.

President Ursula von der Leyen, in her Political Guidelines 2024-2029, emphasised the urgent need to ‘step up our work on preventive health, in particular for mental health’. She stressed that it is essential to respond to the real and legitimate concerns of Europeans about the instabilities and insecurities they face – including the cost of living, housing and energy, the wars- and recognised the impact of these changes and crises on the quality of life of the population¹. She placed a special focus on the mental health of children and young people, especially online, and promised actions to tackle what she calls ‘the greatest challenge in this decade’.

These promises by the European Commission President build on commitments made over recent years by several EU institutions², including the Communication on a comprehensive approach to mental health.  However, as the EU and all member states are reckoning with the inability of our current mental health systems to address increased needs of the population³, these initiatives should be considered as a starting point, and further actions are urgently required to prioritise mental health across Europe.

The undersigned organisations welcome European Commission President’s renewed ambition and call on all stakeholders to work together to translate this ambition into concrete actions.

Europe faces a clear choice. To address the concerns of the population or further contribute to persisting challenges. The second option will come with a cost, for our societies, economies, and democracies.

On this World Mental Health Day, the undersigned organisations call:

On the European Commission

To develop a comprehensive European strategy on mental health, with a clear timeline and adequate budget, as well as indicators to monitor and coordinate progress at the European and Member State levels.

The European strategy on mental health should:

• Adopt a ‘mental health in all policies’ approach, by addressing the socio-economic and environmental determinants of mental health, in different policy areas within and beyond health and with a strong focus on prevention.
• Ensure that nobody is left behind, by recognising that some groups of people are particularly at risk of experiencing poor mental health and less likely to have access to tailored mental health support, because they live in vulnerable situations, experience structural marginalisation, or due to of intersectional discrimination.
• Fight against mental health stigma and discrimination, by promoting initiatives to support mental health and communication campaigns in the EU through a European year of mental health.
• Ensure that the digital transformation puts human rights at its centre and supports children and all people to thrive through their life course. It is crucial not to place the responsibility for better mental health outcomes exclusively on the individuals or families but to address structural issues, such as the business model and design of digital services and products and the related power imbalances.
• Propose a legislative initiative, in consultation with the social partners, on the management of psychosocial risks and well-being at work, with special attention to the health and care workforces.
• Ensure the transition to community based, accessible, affordable, and human rights based mental health care, and contribute to deinstitutionalisation.
• Put forward a comprehensive and holistic approach to promote good mental health for children and young people – online and offline – building on the commitments under the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, the EU Child Guarantee and the EU Youth Strategy. Strengthen preventative measures and early intervention programs.
• Adopt a co-creation approach when developing policies or practices related to mental health. Special efforts should be made to reach out to the groups structurally excluded from decision making processes.
• Fund research and innovation in line with a psychosocial model of mental health.
• Facilitate the identification, collation, routine reporting, and use of core mental health data disaggregated by race, gender, sex, age, disabilities, sexual orientation, sex characteristics, gender identity and other grounds to properly capture intersectionality issues.

On Member States to:

• To elaborate action plans or strategies in coordination with the EU level action, with a cross-sectoral approach to mental health, addressing not only health, but also employment, education, digitalisation and AI, culture, environment, and climate factors, among others, as recommended in the European Council Conclusions on Mental Health.
• To develop community based, recovery oriented mental health services in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the European Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

On the European Parliament:

• To establish an Intergroup on mental health, ensuring a formal structure to foster exchanges on mental health across different political groups and to strengthen collaboration between Members and civil society.

Footnotes

¹According to the Eurobarometer (2023), 62% of European Union citizens think that recent world events (the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the climate crisis, unemployment, and the food and energy costs) affected their mental health.

²See Mental Health Europe’s briefing on political developments here.

³More than half of respondents to the last EU Barometer survey experiencing a mental health problem have not received help from a professional.

Signatories

Last update: 11th December 2024

1. 5Rights Foundation
2. ADHD Europe aisbl
3. Age Platform
4. Alliance for Childhood
5. APOSTOLI
6. APOYO POSITIVO
7. Association SKUC
8. Associazione Contatto APS
9. Autism Europe
10. CEIPES ETS
11. Coface Families Europe
12. Croatian association of person with intellectual disabilities
13. Culture Action Europe
14. DIG – Delmenhorst Institute for Health Promotion
15. EMDR Europe Association
16. EPSA (European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association)
17. Estuar Foundation
18. EUPHA – European Public Health Association
19. EUREGHA – European Regional and Local Health Authorities
20. Euro Youth Mental Health
21. EUROCADRES
22. EUROCARERS – European Association Working with and for Informal Carers
23. Eurochild
24. Eurodiaconia
25. EuroHealthNet
26. European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG)
27. European Association of Service providers for Persons with Disabilities (EASPD)
28. European Commission Joint Research Centre
29. European Council for High Ability
30. European Disability Forum
31. European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA)
32. European Federation of Psychologists´Associations AISBL (EFPA)
33. European Federation of Psychology Students’ Associations  (EFPSA)
34. European Medical Students’ Association (EMSA)
35. European Network of (Ex)Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
36. European Public Health Alliance
37. European Youth Forum
38. Gamian Europe
39. ILGA-Europe
40. Inclusion Europe
41. ISCA – International Sport and Culture Association
42. League for Mental Health in Slovakia
43. Learning for Well-being Foundation
44. Lusófona University, HEI‐Lab: Digital Human‐Environment Interaction Labs
45. Make Mothers Matter
46. Medecins du Monde – Belgique
47. Mental Health Europe
48. New Directions Ability west
49. Nightline France
50. Prolepsis Institute
51. Psychedelic Access and Research European Alliance
52. SIMEPSI ETS
53. SOCIETY OF SOCIAL PSYCHIATRY P. SAKELLAROPOULOS
54. SOS Children’s Villages
55. Standing Committee of European Doctors (CPME)
56. Stigmamente Arte Media e Psichiatria sullo Stigma e la Diversità
57. TENENET o.z.
58. The European Alcohol Policy Alliance (Eurocare)
59. Volonteurope
60. Worte und Taten / Words and Deeds