Brussels, 15/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - In a letter to Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the head of the Nea Demokratia delegation in the European Parliament and rapporteur on the public health action programme, Antonios Trakatellis, expresses surprise at the lack of reference to health in the preliminary draft constitutional treaty. "Whereas public health is an area of shared competencies within which the principle of subsidiarity undoubtedly applies between Member states and the Union - and that will also remain so in the future - refusal to include such an important subject in an article mentioning the Union's goals (Article 3) is a step back in relation to the existing treaties 9Articles 3 and 152)", writes Professor Trakatellis. He then adds: "I am of the opinion that the field of public health must be explicitly enshrined in the text of the constitutional treaty and that the Union should intervene to complement the action of Member states. For the aforementioned reasons, I would ask you to take the initiative of proposing the inclusion of public health as general objective, as well as the Union's contribution to the achievement of a high level of health protection in this vast European project".
EUROPE recalls that different organisations of civil society and several members of the Convention, including certain government representatives, who have meanwhile signalled the need to preserve national health and social security systems, are pleading for enhanced Union competencies in the health and social sectors.