Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-21-Speech-1-064"
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"en.20070521.15.1-064"2
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".
Madam President, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to discuss this issue again with you. We have discussed it on numerous occasions, including in committee.
Concerning the instrument we can use, as I said at the beginning, last year health services were excluded from the scope of the Services Directive at the request of the European Parliament, and the Commission was invited to come up with specific proposals on health services. The Commission agreed to this approach and therefore it does not intend to reopen the discussion regarding possible reinclusion in the Services Directive. On the contrary, we are now in the final stages of preparing a specific proposal directed at those specific issues. It will be a package with various measures, but the first one will comprise, as called for in the report, specific legislative proposals in this area. We will follow this up with various other steps.
However, as I have said, the main objective for all of us is the benefit of European citizens, of European patients, with the principle of subsidiarity always being taken into account.
We are dealing with a real situation today. On the one hand, there are a series of judgments by the European Court of Justice and the jurisprudence created in this field and, on the other, the decision of the European Parliament, which the Commission has accepted and agreed to, not to include health services in the Services Directive.
As promised, at the time when the debate was taking place and upon the exclusion of health services from the Services Directive, we initiated action in a specific area of healthcare at European level; hence our initiative to begin with a consultation document, to start public consultation and then to continue with a more specific proposal.
The public consultation is finished and we already have the results. We have already had two ministerial discussions on this issue and, with your debate today, we will have a more complete picture of the position not only of the institutions but also of the European citizens and we will then be ready for the next phase, which will be the drafting of the proposal. I can assure you that today’s discussion and of course the report will make a significant contribution as to how we will proceed in this respect. Therefore I should like to thank the rapporteur and congratulate her on a very thorough and comprehensive report and I should also like to thank the other committees for contributing to it.
We are in the middle of this process, which allows us to bring the setting of policies back to the policymakers – those who have the mandate to decide and propose policies will do so in this important area.
As I have said, we have finished the consultation process. We had more than 300 contributions from Member States, regional authorities, organisations representing patients and professionals as well as healthcare providers – even hospitals and individual citizens. Even though there were different views depending on the background of each contribution, there was nevertheless one common approach: there is added value if European action is taken in this respect. The debate goes beyond patient mobility and covers many other areas, such as information for patients, patients’ rights, the movement of professionals, cooperation of healthcare assistants, centres of excellence, exchange of best practice in all areas that could contribute to effective cross-border healthcare for the benefit of patients, the citizens – our foremost concern – without creating any unnecessary burden on the healthcare systems in the Member States.
All these contributions and your report today will be a very important reference point for our next step, which will be a specific proposal.
We recognise that health services have a specificity – they are distinct from other services in the European Union – and therefore the challenge is how to make a choice between the internal market and social values and put in place a framework that can bring both the benefits of freedom of movement on the one hand and respect for health objectives and social values on the other, especially as this was recently confirmed by the health ministers at the informal Council meeting in Aachen.
I believe that Parliament’s report broadly reflects the issues that were identified by many stakeholders and the ministers. This underlines the need to take action at European level."@en1
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