FRANCE 24's Europe team brings you a new series of Europe Now programmes, focusing on "levelling up" – efforts aimed at making life more equal across Europe's many and diverse regions. We examine both national efforts to level up, and the role that EU funding plays in those attempts. EU structural and cohesion funds have become even more important in the light of the war in Ukraine and the ensuing energy crisis, which threatens to increase unequal living standards around Europe.

For this first programme, we travel to Greece, a country still struggling with the legacy of the 2010 debt crisis and years of austerity measures. In this first part of the show, we focus on the country's public health system, by speaking to health expert Thanos Myloneros as well as Niki Dandolou, Special Secretary for EU Social Fund programmes, about EU financing and the Covid-19 crisis in particular.

Our reporter Luke Brown visits the Greek islands and rural Italy for a pan-European view of healthcare issues supported by EU funds, while Sophie Samaille explains just what exactly EU cohesion funds do.

Show presented by Armen Georgian, produced by Johan Bodin, filmed on location by Johan Bodin and Stéphane Bodenne, with Luke Brown. 

>> Watch part two of the show

Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the DG Regional and Urban Policy. Neither the European Union nor the DG Regional and Urban Policy can be held responsible for them.