Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-01-18-Speech-2-439-000"
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"en.20110118.19.2-439-000"2
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"Mr President, I believe that tomorrow’s vote will be one of the most important votes that I have been involved in during my six years in the European Parliament. That is not because it affects a lot of people – most people, of course, want, and have a right, to receive good, timely care where they live. It is because, for those it does affect, it may be incredibly important. It may even be a matter of life or death. This also concerns the fundamental idea of European cooperation – free movement. It is actually disgraceful that we are only now extending the freedom of movement to those who need it most; those who are sick, those who are patients.
This is a compromise, and I know that both I and my colleagues in the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) would have gone further on many aspects, but we must now remember how things stood not so very long ago, with all the talk of healthcare tourism, the threatened collapse of national healthcare systems, the requirement for advance notification, or, to put it plainly, as patients, we were to be forced to ask permission before exercising the rights that the European Court of Justice has given us. That was how things stood before and, in light of that, the fact that we have a decision at all constitutes an enormous success.
I do not regard this as a decision that we are taking as a result of what the Swedish or European Left has done, but rather in spite of it. I remember the previous wording and the fact that, for example, the Swedish Social Democrats abstained from the vote on this at first reading. Yesterday, someone called for the introduction of advance notification in Sweden. I hope that Sweden does not do this. We have managed without advance notification for many years and I hope we will continue to do without it in the future, too.
However, our decision will be made here in the European Parliament tomorrow, and then it will be up to the Member States and the Commission. Implement this so that we strengthen patients’ rights instead of reducing them. That is my plea to the Member States. To the Commission, I would say: keep a close eye on the Member States, because we know that they will want to avoid implementing this."@en1
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