Brussels, 02/12/2003 (Agence Europe) - EU Health Ministers meeting on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Girolama Sirchia adopted several resolutions and recommendations. They also reached an agreement on the text that will serve as a basis for establishing the future European centre for control of transmissible diseases. The Council has entrusted the Commission with the task of representing the Union in negotiations to be opened at the World Health Organisation in order to review international health regulations.
European Centre for Control of Transmissible Diseases will not have regulatory powers
Such was the condition set by Germany and the United Kingdom with the approval of a number of other Member States. The future European centre for the prevention and control of transmissible diseases will not have the slightest regulatory power. It will simply ensure coordination of activities of the centres existing at national level. Its scope will cover transmissible diseases and outbreaks of diseases of unknown origin. This is a compromise between the Member States which, like Germany, hope to restrict its action to transmissible diseases alone. Then there are the other States, like Belgium and France, that wish to go further. This formula, proposed by Commissioner David Bryne,
Enable possible diseases to be taken into account before the certainty of the infectious nature was confirmed and therefore allow for more action to be taken sooner. During the final press conference, Mr Sirchia reckoned that this result would allow the Irish Presidency to "get this centre up and running". The European Parliament is expected to reach a decision in February 4 but Mr Byrne is also expected to soon begin discussions with the rapporteur John Bowis to prepare the ground for approval of the text in a single reading. The centre could be operational by January 2005. Its location still remains uncertain but three delegations were proposed on Tuesday: Luxembourg, Sweden and Hungary.
Cancer - healthy living - fight against smoking
The Council had adopted a recommendation on cancer screening, which calls on Member States to set up screening programmes that comply with strict European guidelines and good practices. Member States are also called on to guarantee that complementary procedures for diagnosis, treatment, psychological support and suitable post treatment follow up are according to the guidelines based on convincing evidence for people whose tests are positive. The Council is not going as far as the EP would have liked in its opinion of 19 November (EUROPE 21 November p 14) but it is proposing to make three kinds of screening systematic: 1) the Papanicolaou test for cervical cancer, beginning at the age of 20 at the earliest and 30 at the latest: 2) breast cancer screening for women from the age of 50-69, in compliance with European guidelines; 3) screening of blood in stools for colorectal cancer in men and women from 50-74.
The Council has also approved conclusions on modes for healthy living, one the priorities of the Italian presidency. The Council is highlighting the damage that tobacco can cause, as well as alcohol and drugs. It underlines the importance of good food and physical exercise. These worries are expected to be included in a programme that the Commission and Member States will be implementing for promoting healthy living, as part of the Community action plan on public health.
French Minister, Jean-François Mattei presented his colleagues with a memorandum on the harmonisation of tax on tobacco. He informed the press that Member States agreed on the fight against cancer and on the WHO Convention against smoking. He explained that it was logical to make the price the first tool in the fight against smoking, which explained the need for tax harmonisation. He acknowledged tat this proposal "had not provoked any considerable enthusiasm".
Support for European information system on medicines
The Council has adopted a resolution entitled "Medicines and public health: the challenges - Priority on patients" in which it looks at the need for broader action plans in order to obtain added therapeutic value, rational use of medicines and patient information, three subjects that were the subject of conclusions in June 2000. Although it underlines the importance of research, the Council focuses a large part of this resolution on patient information, which was one of the subjects of disagreement in discussion on amendment of Community pharmaceutical legislation. Like the EP health committee during its vote last week on the "Medicines package", the Council is calling on the Commission to study with Member States the possibility of putting into action, a European information system on medicines that targets patients and health care professionals.
The Council also adopted conclusion on medical instruments. It welcomed the Commission's intention to revise the 1990 and 1993 directives on these instruments.
Medicines: the compromise is within reach
During lunch, Ministers initially tackled, together with Commissioners Erkki Liikanen and David Byrne, three cases on which the European Parliament was voting: traditional plant-based medicines; quality and safety standards for human cells and tissues; the revision of European pharmaceutical legislation. The two latter points will be submitted ruing the December plenary in Strasbourg and the Presidency wanted to measure the level of support it could get for negotiating compromise amendments in order to complete the two cases by calling for codecison procedure. This procedure would be particularly dangerous because the "Medicines package", which is in danger of not being adopted before the end of the current legislature. However, Jean-François Mattei, said that the tone used at lunch indicated that they were on the way to a compromise with parliament. He added that, "France supports a compromise under the Italian presidency" and he was convinced that "things should pan out in the next few days". EUROPE will be coming back to this subject.