Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-12-Speech-1-179"
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"en.20070312.22.1-179"2
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"Mr President, I am not sure whether I can say that we have come a long way since we first discussed this issue, but I can certainly say that we are on the right track. You will remember that our first discussion on this issue was even before the final outcome of the Services Directive. Parliament requested that a proposal on healthcare and health services should be brought forward and I promised that, as soon as the Services Directive was sorted out, I would do so. That is what I did last September in bringing forward this proposal.
On the basis of the consultation and its outcome, the Commission plans to bring forward practical proposals later in 2007. Our aim is to find a solution which provides real added value without creating more red tape and which respects the principle of subsidiarity.
Many issues have been described already and I will try not to repeat them. However, we tried to maintain, firstly, the special character of health, healthcare and health services in the European Union and to meet the challenge not only of achieving the social objectives, but also of benefiting from the internal market. It is true that the Court set out the parameters and the rights in its judgment, but I believe that those rights should be seen not as a problem, but as an opportunity and I tend to agree with that part of the motion for a resolution.
We have the realities before us, as described by the European Court of Justice. The point now is how to make them work for the benefit of patients, the Member States, national health systems and providers. We can do this not only for patient mobility, but also for all other aspects of cross-border healthcare.
I agree that the ultimate target must be that a European citizen should be able to receive the best healthcare where he or she lives. We should meet our aim of ensuring equality of health in the European Union. However, we know that this is a long-term objective and also that, under certain circumstances, it may not be possible, feasible or even desirable, depending on the financial, as well as – most importantly – the scientific aspects. Sometimes, we will still need to make use of the cross-border possibilities of healthcare.
As I have said, we launched the initiative in September 2006. The idea was to have a broad consultation, which ended on 31 January 2007. In the communication we described and analysed all the problems and issues, which are complicated. We have to follow a step-by-step approach. We will need a package to sort out and deal with all the aspects of cross-border healthcare, but that does not mean that we have to wait until they are all resolved before we present a proposal: we can do that in phases.
We are now in the process of analysing the contributions. We have had more than 270 from the Member States, from regional and local authorities, and from European national and regional organisations, representing patients, healthcare providers, health professionals, social security institutions, health insurance, universities, and hospitals, and even from individual citizens. Although I do not want to prejudice the results of the in-depth analysis, it must be said that the first assessment confirms the need for Community action to address the range of issues set out in the consultation paper, for example, legal certainty and support for cooperation between health systems. In addition, even though there are many different views on the details of specific aspects, the overall picture is clear: there seems to be potential added value for patients, professionals and health systems overall from some form of Community action on health services.
The Commission is in the process of analysing a summary of the report on all the contributions already published on our website. A summary report of the contributions will be drafted to provide an idea of the views and ideas sent in and should be available this spring.
However, the views and the input of the European Parliament are extremely important to us and will be a determining factor.
We will ensure that any future proposals on health services under this initiative are consistent with ongoing work on services of general interest and, of course, on the ongoing modernisation of the regulations on the coordination of social security systems. There has to be coherence and coordination among all these initiatives."@en1
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