Brussels, 10/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission referred Poland to the Court of Justice of the EU on Thursday 10 December for not transposing certain provisions of EU legislation laying down the quality and safety standards for human blood (Directives 2002/98/EC, 2004/33/EC and 2005/61/EC).
These directives lay down a number of provisions aimed at ensuring the safety of blood, including rules for the minimum age of donors, conditions for importing blood from third counties, and reporting obligations of blood establishments.
The deadline for transposing the directives dating from 2002 and 2004 was 8 February 2005 and for the 2005 directive, it was 31 August 2006. “To date, Poland has not informed the European Commission about the adoption of national legislation comprehensively transposing the relevant EU Directives”, the Commission says.
It identifies three areas of shortcoming: - Polish rules on admissibility of minors are less protective than the EU rules (in particular, donors below the age of 17 are permitted); - Polish legislation does not require equivalent traceability and testing standards for imports of blood and blood components from third countries to those applicable to blood and blood components collected in the EU; - the required content of the annual activity reports of blood establishments is not fully reflected in the Polish legislation. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)