11 December 2014 – The public health community calls on Mr Juncker, President of the European Commission, to reconsider his decision to move the competence for medicinal products and health technologies from the Commissioner in charge of Health to the Commissioner in charge of internal market and industry within the new Commission.
To Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission
Dear President,
We followed attentively your speech before the European Parliament on 22 October 2014, where you stated the following: “Responsibility for medicines and pharmaceutical products will stay with the Directorate-General for Health because I agree with you that medicines are not goods like any other. The relevant policy will be developed jointly by Vytenis Andriukaitis and by Elżbieta Bieńkowska, who showed her incredible talents in her hearing.”
We very much welcomed your decision. We indeed believe that medicinal products cannot be regulated as any other good. Policies and legislations related to medicinal products should always be led by public health as well as patient safety objectives. Economic interests should in no way be the main driver in this field.
We however still have serious concerns in relation to the portfolio for health technologies, which encompasses medical devices. Looking at the decision issued on 1 November 2014 on the organisation of responsibilities of the Members of the Commission (C(2014) 9000), it appears that Unit SANCO B2 (Health Technology and Cosmetics) will be moved to DG ENTR. As for medicinal products, we believe that the Health Directorate-General is best placed to ensure health technologies are regulated in the interest of patients’ safety and public health. Pharmaceuticals and health technologies are of equal importance in the provision of care and should not be treated differently.
Over the past years, numerous scandals and controversies over faulty medical devices have shown the need to maintain a health and safety perspective over economic growth. Ensuring that these technologies are efficient and safe to use is of utmost importance and we insist that this competence is left in the hands of Dr Vytenis Andriukaitis, Commissioner for Health.
We already raised our concerns jointly with other European Health NGOs in an open letter addressed to you on 28 October 2014. We reiterate our plea to keep the portfolio of health technologies in the Directorate-General for Health. We call on your Commission to put the health of European citizens before economic interests.
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The signatories
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