Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-11-Speech-4-034"
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"en.20040311.3.4-034"2
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"Mr President, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, I wish firstly to say that, in our view, Mrs Jöns’ report is constructive in many ways. Above all, we welcome the way in which it makes it clear that health care must be provided close to the patients in their local environments, because family, friends and colleagues mean such a lot in terms of rehabilitation and the quality of care.
Right now, it seems, however, as if the trend is in completely the opposite direction. Health care is to be part of the internal market. This very day, as we are having this debate, the Competition Council is sitting and discussing matters in Brussels, where Mr Bolkestein will propose a radical step towards the commercialisation of care, and other, services. The basic principle is to be that every producer who is an approved operator in one Member State must freely be able to establish operations in any other Member State.
This will quickly break down the public health care systems and prepare the way for extensive privatisation. Instead of care provided close to patients in local environments, we shall have large multinational health care companies, medicine-producing industrial groups and health insurance companies as the large and powerful actors in a market where it is large-scale production and the profit motive that govern activities. I have even read a report dealing with the way in which the sick, or what are termed mobile patients, are to be moved around in this large market.
These developments are a threat to patients’ rights, and we in the European Parliament must do all we can to stop them. We must get the Commission to stop and give us more time for responsible debate. There are many services that can operate very well in the internal market, but there are also services – and health care is one such – that are of a different character and are not at all suited to market principles.
Cross-border cooperation is required when it comes to health care services too. This can and should, however, be developed between Member States and border regions on the basis of more practical needs instead of in accordance with the abstract principle of the organisation of the internal market.
If the Commission successfully carries out its offensive in terms of subjecting what were previously public services to the principles of the internal market, popular resistance to the EU project will, in general, rise to unguessed-at levels.
Where Mrs Jöns’ report is concerned, the House must reject paragraph 23, which is about health care being subject to the principles of the internal market. If it does not reject it, at least the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left will not be able to vote in favour of the report in the final vote."@en1
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