Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-18-Speech-2-344"
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be appearing before Parliament’s plenary sitting to take part in the joint debate on organ donation and transplantation.
We are doing so by establishing a European model for donation and transplantation around values and principles that we all share: solidarity, fairness and cohesion, which are the symbols of the Union’s identity. This will help to achieve self-sufficiency in organ donation and therefore to combat transplant tourism.
I am sure you will agree with me that the entry into force of this directive and Parliament’s support for the action plan will, in themselves, boost the exchange of organs between the Member States and promote donation.
Firstly, we are establishing an EU framework to give Europeans equal access to health in general and to transplant treatment in particular. Secondly, this more efficient Union framework will directly benefit patients who, due to their characteristics, have a smaller chance of finding an organ that suits their needs. As a result, there will be a reduction in the number of organs wasted due to the absence of a suitable recipient in a particular geographical area.
Ladies and gentlemen, before I conclude, the Spanish Presidency would like to thank the Czech and Swedish presidencies for the work that they did in beginning the negotiations in 2009, creating the circumstances for significant progress thanks to the cooperation of the Member States and the Commission.
The Spanish Presidency would also like to thank Parliament for its hard work and particularly the rapporteurs, Mr Mikolášik and Mr Perello, for the work that they have done to promote the necessary agreement and consensus.
It is through the joint work of all the Union’s institutions that we have to reach an agreement that will enable us to launch a European service which, on the one hand, will give 500 million people the best guarantees of quality and safety and, on the other, will promote equal access to the treatment on which so many lives depend every year, and also the solidarity of our society. Let us enhance what the European Union means today.
This is certainly an important debate, firstly because it has a direct impact on people’s lives and on the health of thousands of Europeans. In this respect, I would like to remind you that, despite the constant increase in the number of donations and transplantations in recent years, it is estimated that currently there are 56 000 patients in the European Union on the waiting list for the right organ, and many of them die before receiving it.
Secondly, it is an important debate because it enables us to enhance the generosity and solidarity of our society. Allow me to give you an example: currently in the European Union, there are 18 donors for every million inhabitants. If we were able to increase this figure to equal the highest figures, such as 34 in Spain or more than 30 in Portugal, 20 000 more lives would be saved in Europe.
Likewise, promoting organ donation by living donors across the European Union to the levels in Scandinavian countries, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands would free a further 2 000 people from dialysis every year. We should never forget, ladies and gentlemen, that without donors, there can be no transplants.
The debate this afternoon is going to enable us to give a definitive boost to the launch of a common Union strategy for achieving the best structure in the world for organ donation and transplantation. Moreover, Article 168 of the recent Treaty of Lisbon gives us the opportunity to create this common, high quality and safe framework for the process of donation and transplantation.
We now have two important Commission initiatives on this, which were presented in 2008, and on which the Council, along with Parliament, has worked very hard and very generously in recent months.
The first is the proposal for a directive regulating the quality and safety aspects of organs intended for transplantation. As I said, this directive establishes a common legal framework which must enable us to limit certain risks in all the stages of the process of using organs for treatment, from donation to transplantation. This involves guaranteeing the quality and safety of the organs but also protecting donors and recipients by appointing the competent authorities.
Secondly, we also have an action plan that helps to strengthen cooperation between the Member States, the objectives of which are threefold: first, to increase the availability of organs; second, to improve efficiency and accessibility to the transplant system; and third, to improve quality and safety.
Ladies and gentlemen, these two initiatives give us a common framework, which is a European framework that incorporates not only the best shared elements, but also the best of good organisational and welfare practice that the different Member States have been building up in this field. In other words, it is a framework based on quality, security and innovation."@en1
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