October 8 2014, Brussels – On 10th of September, the European Commission President-elected Jean-Claude Juncker unveiled the transfer of the competence for medicinal products and health technologies from the health portfolio to the enterprise one (now called Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs).
——-
Dear Member of European Parliament,
The shift of EU pharmaceutical policy will put Europe’s security at risk and is in contradiction with how pharmaceutical policy is governed in all 28 EU Member States.
With the responsibility for medicinal products and health technologies policies removed out of Commissioner designated for Health Dr Vytenis Andriukaitis’ portfolio, the latter runs the risk of not being able to fulfil his mandate to ensure pandemic preparedness (like Ebola, flu…), to coordinate health policies and their outcomes, all through the spectrum of care services and goods. This could affect the well-being of more than 500 million people living in Europe.
The European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) believes that we can’t consume medicines and medical devices like any other product; that is the reason why we initiated a European-wide campaign to reintegrate pharma policy within health, through the official twitter hashtag #Pharma4Health.
Citizens through NGOs stood up against this political decision. You can find an open letter of Europan NGOs sent to national governments online and pdf as well as a letter attached which was recently sent by NGOs to President Martin Schulz and to Members of the Conference of the Presidents.
Tomorrow, Thursday 9th of October, the Conference of the Presidents will meet Mr Juncker in order to talk about the last hearings. This is your last chance to have your say on this issue.
We would like to ask for your support in getting in touch with your Groups’ presidents and also with Committee’s chairs in order to make the reversal of that pharma competence shift a pre-condition for the vote of the College of Commissioners.
You, Member of European Parliament have already expressed your commitment to Public health. We would like to thank you for your support in these important previous days, but the battle still goes on: based on our shared values, you can keep the pressure on Mr Juncker and his designated team!
For any question or suggestion, feel free to contact me, Ms Kolia BÉNIÉ, EPHA’s Policy Coordinator for EU Affairs and Governance at kolia@epha.org
Yours sincerely,
The European Public Health Alliance