Brussels, 18/09/2014 (Agence Europe) - Vytenis Andriukaitis, Lithuanian Minister for Health since 2012, has been chosen by the president designate of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, to take over the post of commissioner for health and food safety. This 63-year old Social Democrat was born in Siberia, to where his parents had been deported in 1941 by the Soviet occupiers. He practised as a surgeon before becoming interested in politics in the 1960s as part of the clandestine anti-Soviet movements. He participated in Lithuania's independence in 1990, before beginning a long parliamentary career. In his party, Andriukaitis is considered as an expert on European legislation. He has also long been a member of the Lithuanian European Affairs Committee, which he chaired from 2000-2004. During the Lithuanian presidency of the EU (1 July-31 December 2013), he took forward, on behalf of the Council, discussions on the tobacco directive and clinical trials. His detractors consider him as an adversary who does not mince his words and someone who is not always a great team player.
In his mission statement, Jean-Claude Junker called on Andriukaitis to work in close collaboration with vice-president Jyrki Katainen, who is in charge of employment, growth, investment and competitiveness, and with Frans Timmermans, the first vice-president, responsible for better regulation, institutional relations, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms, in an effort to help simplify legislation in the health and food safety fields. Although the EU's remit is limited in health policy, this being covered by the member states, the Commission, nonetheless, has an important role to play in helping member states meet the challenges of increased health care demands, in the context of intense pressure on the public coffers, explains the mission statement. The new commissioner will focus on three specific areas: 1) supporting and promoting cooperation between member states when they have to tackle health crises or pandemics; 2) pursuing work on legislation relating to the cultivation of GMO crops; 3) continuing to develop expertise for the evaluation of new higher performing healthcare systems. During his term of office, Andriukaitis will have to be particularly vigilant in his relations with the powerful lobbies, particularly those in the pharmaceutical industry, in order to avoid another “Dalli affair” arising. Former commissioner John Dalli was forced to resign in October 2012, following alleged meetings with the tobacco industry when he was putting the finishing touches to the tobacco directive. Transparency will therefore have to prevail when the new commissioner works with the various stakeholders, said EPHA, the European Public Health Alliance, which hopes that Andriukaitis will put health at the top of the European work agenda.
Medicines or simply a commodity? Voices have already been raised to denounce the underlying desire of the Juncker Commission to proceed to the “commodification” of health care. The reshuffling of the DGs means that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) will no longer be accountable to DG Health and Consumers (SANCO) but rather DG Enterprise and Industry (ENTR). This shift has been denounced by health bodies that fear that industrial and economic interests will prevail over those of health. Belgian MEP (S&D) Marc Tarabella asserted that “the Commission believes that patients should become customers and medicines simple commodities”. Legislation will now be drafted from a commercial perspective and scientific recommendations from the EMA are now in danger of being more in tune with an industrial rather than a citizen's agenda, he argued. Similarly, the public health organisations, following the line of the European Consumers Bureau (see EUROPE 11153) have been critical that medical devices (including the notorious breast implants) have been transferred from DG SANCO to DG ENTR. (IL)