Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-21-Speech-1-090"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20070521.15.1-090"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, I shall begin in French for the purposes of saying something to Mr Goebbels. I have been described in many different ways during my political life, but this is the first time that I have been called an ultra-liberal.
The challenge is how to make all this work. I believe that we are now dealing with one of the most important initiatives in this area. Patient mobility should complement, not replace, the provision of healthcare at home. This is the main objective, but all citizens should have the same opportunities, irrespective of their income or education or language skills. They have to be able to take advantage of this right in a way that will be decided by the policymakers, but it must be decided on the basis of equality for all European citizens.
Medical tourism is a totally different issue. We are not dealing with that, we are not touching on that, we are not encouraging that. This is something that is dealt with by the private sector, private citizens, and private funds. It is not something that we will be working on. Again, it is a reality: people travel because they want to combine holidays with medical treatment, but that is not something we are working on at this time.
It is important to deal with the issue of overall cross-border healthcare as soon as possible – now, proactively – before it becomes too big to handle. It is not just the issue of paying for health assistance, but also the availability of health assistance which may be overburdened by incoming patients. That is another issue we will take into account.
We will combine all the interests of the patients. In view of the realities that we face and in spite of different approaches and different ideologies on the details, it is therefore very important that we work together to achieve what is best for the European citizens. I intend to do that and I hope the European Parliament will work with us to this end.
That is why I should like to explain myself, because I believe that the statement that I made to the
and also to the Financial Times has not been understood correctly. So that I can ensure that I am understood correctly, I shall continue in English.
What I was saying to the newspapers was that the existing situation was not my policy. What I was describing – and I would like to come back to this – was the reality after the European Court of Justice judgments, which stated that internal market rules apply to healthcare even if it is publicly funded.
Probably it is not Parliament’s policy, but it is a reality with which we have to work. It is inevitable that, if people can travel to seek treatment abroad, there may be some competition; people should have the choice. So the challenge for us is how we can make this right, recognised by the European Court of Justice, work primarily for the benefit of European citizens but not so as to undermine and destroy Member States’ healthcare systems.
A lot has been said about the subsidiarity in Article 152 and I would like to remind you of what the Court said on that. The Court said that, even though Member States have the right to organise and deliver health services and medical care, this does not exclude the possibility that Member States may be required under other Treaty provisions to make adjustments to their national health systems. Hence the application of internal market rules.
So this is the first legal reality we have to work with, but of course we also have a factual reality. Unfortunately there are inequalities in European healthcare systems: Member States cannot offer the same level of healthcare to their citizens. People who seek treatment travel abroad and, if they are refused this right, they go to the Court of Justice. I think you will agree with me that we cannot have every citizen going to Luxembourg and seeking a judgment from the European Court of Justice to decide whether he or she can have an operation.
That is why we are faced with the challenge of how can we make these principles established by the Court work both for citizens and Member States. I must emphasise that our main target is to deal with the inequalities that exist in the European Union. We have policies and strategies, which we will be able to discuss later this year, on how to achieve this.
It is also very important that we recognise what has been said already, i.e. that citizens would rather have treatment at home, near where they live, and this is the main priority for all of us. But, until we deal with inequalities, people will need to seek treatment abroad. Also, as we have already said, it makes more sense in border regions to cross the border than to take a long journey to your country’s capital. There are also scientific reasons: sometimes specialised treatments may be better provided in another Member State.
The existing legislation does not cover these issues because it is not just a question of patient mobility. We are also working on safety, quality, patients’ rights and the patient’s right to information. All these require legislation that is more thorough than the existing legislation. Furthermore, the principles in the existing legislation are different from those described by the Court, so we also have to deal with this."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples