Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-14-Speech-2-264"
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"en.20030114.8.2-264"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by extending my very warm thanks to Mr Mantovani for his excellent cooperation. I think we have succeeded in securing a broad majority in tomorrow's plenary for this most important report. It is also timely that we should at last achieve closer cooperation in health policy and, of course, also in care for the elderly, something to which the Gothenburg Summit, albeit very late in the day, pointed the way.
Let us just be honest. In matters of health policy, the EU is still catching up with reality. In many fields, after all, a European health policy already exists – the Euregios spring to mind. Even now, to take an example, patients in the German Rhineland have the right to use their German health insurance cards to obtain treatment in health centres in the Netherlands. Apart from that, Europe has hospitals generally recognised as specialising in specific diseases, and there are also European networks that draw up guidelines for the treatment of those diseases.
All the Member States are looking for strategies to guarantee that their health care systems will, in future, remain accessible to all and to secure their standards of quality and performance, as well as ensuring that it is possible to finance them. New mechanisms are constantly being tried out, but, as yet, nobody has made the great breakthrough. So, when governments realise the importance of organising an EU-wide exchange of experience on matters concerning health care and the care of the elderly, they are simply being logically consistent.
Just to take the wind out of the sceptics' sails, let me say that I am convinced that nobody in this House actively wants a single European system of health care. The Commission does not, and the Council very definitely does not. The organisation and funding of health care systems is a matter decided at the national level and should remain so in future. It is far more a case of how we are to retain, in the long term, our European model of a health care policy based on solidarity.
I am speaking quite deliberately in terms of a European model, as the following four principles underlie all health care systems. The first is that health is not, and must not be allowed to become, a purely economic commodity. The second is that equal access to health services is a fundamental right and must remain one. The third is that, as has already been said, all systems of health care are based upon the principle of solidarity. And the fourth is that the State has a crucial role to play in regulating, funding and providing services.
Now, the Mantovani report makes quite practical proposals as to what enhanced European cooperation in health care policy might be like. These proposals have to do with methodology, objectives and specific content. As regards the working method, the report proposes that the open method of coordination should now be brought into play in this area as it has been elsewhere, which is consonant – I am very glad to say – with what the Greek Presidency has said. Now, though, we must not lose any more time, and it is for that reason that the report urges the forthcoming European spring summit to resolve upon a precise timetable for further action and to agree on common targets and indicators within one year.
If, though, we are to be able to carry out any kind of exchange of experience, we have to start by improving the national and European systems of health monitoring. Comparable data are absolutely indispensable here, but to date the EU has not even had a standard measurement of mortality rates. This is where we can even now make progress by using the new action programme on health care policy. The same is true of the establishment of common criteria for patients' rights, and, in view of eastward enlargement in particular, there is a need for a survey of patient mobility in the Euregios, for we know all too well that the shortfall in health care provision is especially pronounced in the regions bordering on the new Member States, and any European constitution must not only stipulate a high standard of health care as an objective, but also health policy's continuing status as a responsibility shared between the EU and the Member States. We do all, after all, want the EU to be able to keep on, in future, using legislation to supplement the Member States' policies."@en1
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