Brussels, 29/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - The Health Ministers are due to meet in Brussels this Thursday 30 November, under the chairmanship of their Finnish colleague Liisa Hyssälä. They will start their meeting by confirming the political agreement reached by Coreper on the Community programme for public health 2007-2013. The main point of disagreement which subsists at this stage with the Parliament is that of the budget for the programme, to which the Council wishes to allocate just 324.15 million EUR in 2004 prices (365.6 million in current prices). In March 2006, at the vote on the report by Greek Christian Democrat Antonios Trakatellis, the Parliament upped the bidding to 1.5 billion EUR, but it will need to review its ambitions downwards. The financial perspectives adopted in the meantime put an end to any hopes of increasing this envelope so considerably (the sum total of credits available annually for health lies in the region of 50 million EUR). It is worth noting that originally, the Commission's proposal provided an envelope of 969 million for the public health segment of the programme. At first reading, the Parliament divided the health and consumer protection programme proposed by the Commission into two with a global envelope of 1.2 billion EUR. The ministers are also set to adopt conclusions on the concept of taking health on board in all policy areas. Commissioner Markos Kyprianou will present the ministers with the communication on alcohol adopted by the Commission on 24 October. Over lunch, the ministers will hold an exchange of views on the Commission's communication which seeks to clarify the role of the EU in the implementation of the international sanitary regulation. In the afternoon, there will be an exchange of views on the third report by the high-level reflection group on health services and medical care. This exchange will doubtless be fuelled by discussions carried out by some 15 ministers (including those of Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom) on Wednesday with Commissioner Kyprianou at the first round table on health services. This round table came as part of a broad public consultation on the communication adopted on 26 September. The objective pursued remains the same: to guarantee a satisfactory level of legal security for cross-border health care and to promote cooperation between the health-care systems of the Member States. The ministers will also continue their talks on the proposed regulation concerning innovative therapies, a subject on which the European Parliament is struggling to move forward (the Mikolasik was rejected at committee stage and the deadline for the tabling of amendments to the second report closes on 28 November). (oj)
On Friday 1 December, the Council will bring together the Ministers for Social Affairs and Employment and Commissioner Vladimir Spidla. It will be chaired by the Finnish Minister for Employment, Tarja Filatov. The Commissioner will take the opportunity to present the Green Paper which the Commission has just adopted, on the modernisation of employment law to face the challenges of the 21st century. At the ensuing exchange of views, the Ministers will state their priorities for modernising employment law. The public consultation on the Green Paper and the so-called flexicurity approach is open until 31 March. The Ministers will then hold a discussion on the challenges of demography, prior to an exchange of views on the proposed directive on additional portability for pension rights. The Council is also set to adopt conclusions on decent work and on sexual equality. (oj)