The informal meeting of EU health ministers closed on Monday 23 April after a day of discussions devoted to healthy nutrition for children and the effectiveness and availability of medicines.
Barely a half of EU ministers travelled to Sofia, Bulgaria, the others sending a representative. A source close to the matter told EUROPE that the value of the meeting lay more in the bilateral discussions held than in the items on the agenda.
The effectiveness and availability of medicines is, nonetheless, a recurrent issue over recent years, particularly under the Dutch Presidency in 2016. The small member states are at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiating with pharmaceutical companies, while the larger member states invoke the subsidiarity principle.
“It seems clear to me that this debate will not conclude with the Bulgarian Presidency”, Bulgarian Health Minister Kiril Ananiev told a press conference.
The European Commission is expected to bring forward a report on incentives to innovation before the end of May.
There was, of course, consensus on healthy nutrition for children, with the 28 member states restricting themselves to acknowledging the importance of good nutrition from infancy.
“Healthy nutrition must be linked to the affordability of food, agricultural policy, taxation, possibilities for regulating, for example, products containing sugar, salt or trans fats that carry a degree of risk. Everyone must do their best to make it possible for more healthy foods to be put on the market”, commented European Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)