European health policy cuts across many areas of activity. Together with the Member States, the European Union seeks to protect and promote the good health of EU citizens. While much of the responsibility for health care lies with the individual Member States, certain issues are best addressed at EU level. EU health policy therefore aims to extend the open method of coordination to health care.

One role of EU health policy is to coordinate efforts to combat or prevent the spread of communicable diseases. The European Union also supports national measures to raise awareness of health issues, for example through information campaigns on AIDS or smoking. The EU is authorized to regulate the European internal market for medicines and healthcare products. Initiatives in the area of health services also constitute an important element.

Increasing significance of the topic of health in policy on Europe

• Health is gaining additional significance against the background of demographic change which is taking place all over Europe. Demographic change poses new challenges to all the EU Member States, and at the same time opens up opportunities. Prevention and health promotion help to ensure that Europeans continue to enjoy increasing life expectancy in good health and restrict the costs caused by demographic change.
• Health policy can also help towards the attainment of the goals of the Lisbon Strategy. The health sector has major potential for growth in all parts of Europe. A key function is played here by innovations in the field of pharmaceuticals. Germany is supporting the Commission’s industrial policy strategy, which relies on innovations in industrial policy as a fundamental precondition for a Europe which asserts itself in global competition by virtue of its economic and socio-political strengths. A pillar of this dynamism is innovation in the pharmaceutical sector. The Pharmaceutical Forum brought into being by Commissioners Verheugen and Kyprianou can help to bring about synergy effects in health and economic policy.
• The health policy field can lend vital momentum to the discussion regarding a Constitution for Europe: In contrary to many other policy areas, the European citizen does not feel any “Eurosceptisicm” here. He/she considers greater European cooperation in the field of health as a concrete personal benefit emanating from the EU. In particular the fight against infectious diseases, which is coordinated across Europe, makes clear the “added value” of Europe.
• The health systems of the European Member States epitomise the face of Europe as a part of social protection. The Open Method of Coordination in health and long-term care helps further establish social protection as a major element of the Lisbon Strategy, and is an important tool to make the Social Europe visible and refine it.

Health policy foci of the German EU Council Presidency

Innovation

The German Presidency aims to push forward or complete dealing with the draft regulation on advanced therapy medicinal products, as well as the reform of the medicinal products directives, in political and legislative terms. The goal is to construct both pieces of legislation in such a way as to safeguard both the innovativeness and competitiveness of the European market for drugs and medicinal products and the high safety and quality standards for patients. A milestone of innovation in the pharmaceutical field on the road to further improvements in the effectiveness, the tolerability and above all the safety of drugs is pharmacogenomics. The objective pursued in pharmacogenomics is tailored drugs therapy. A specialist conference chaired by Germany will be dealing with scientific and regulatory aspects of this innovative approach.

Prevention

Prevention and promotion of healthy lifestyles are key to improving people’s health and to reducing illness-related costs. They are an integral element of future-orientated health systems. The EU Health Programme 2007-2013, which is to be adopted by the Council and the European Parliament under German chairmanship, will provide funding in order to promote health protection and promotion by means of targeted measures to be carried out in several or all Member States. Above all against the background of the number of new HIV infections, which is currently on the increase once more, at the same time as awareness of the problem among the population is falling, the German Presidency will take up and continue to pursue the prevention policy of earlier EU Presidencies, whilst spotlighting specific aspects. A ministerial-level conference will discuss possibilities for greater participation on the part of civil society, leading to greater involvement in measures of HIV/Aids prevention, in particular with regard to Eastern Europe, with a view to ascertaining which political leadership tasks can be carried out by Germany in this context.

‘Promoting healthy nutrition and physical activity’ are the cornerstones of successful prevention, and constitute elements of a strategy which will be put forward by the Commission in its follow-up to its Green Paper of the same name in the first half of 2007. In the context of an event to be organised at senior level, the political significance of health prevention will be emphasised under the German Presidency using the examples of physical exercise and nutrition.

The second Conference of the Parties (COP) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) will also be prepared during the German Presidency.

Access to health services

The removal of health services from the area of application of the ‘Services Directive’ requires renewed efforts to ensure Communitywide access to health services. The Commission has announced a ‘Framework for Safe, High Quality and Efficient Health Services’ for 2007, and will be implementing comprehensive advance consultation. The German Presidency would like to make a vital contribution towards opinion-forming within the Community. The goal must be to preserve national competences whilst creating greater legal certainty in interpreting and applying the relevant provisions of the EC Treaty on freedom of movement of persons and to provide services. Here too, it is a matter of making it possible for people to experience the added value of Europe.