Health Brief: One week in the world of health

Editorial word: One week in the world of health

By Marta Iraola

After an intense week of committee meetings, health issues continue to be addressed beyond the European Parliament walls. Many different initiatives and events take place this week showing that health-related work never stops in the institutions and that is time to discuss the future of health policy -in all its aspects- across the EU.

The week began with the One Health Conference organised by the European Commission in Luxembourg on Monday (13 November). Representatives of the EU institutions and civil society discussed how to better interlink human, animal, plant and environmental health in all policies. 

The main focus of the conference was the monitoring and surveillance of future health threats and the European strategy against antimicrobial resistance. 

On Tuesday, we celebrated World Diabetes Day, aiming to raise awareness about a disease that affects 32 million people in the EU.

Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides issued a statement recognising that “we must do more to respond to this chronic burden for people’s health, their quality of life and our healthcare systems overall”. She also called on member states and stakeholders to strengthen collaboration to improve the lives of people living with diabetes in the EU. 

Also on Tuesday, the Council, the Commission and the Parliament met for the third trilogue on the directive on combating violence against women. No agreement is expected to be reached and there is a fourth trilogue already scheduled for December.

To continue the busy health events week, the European Cancer Summit takes place in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday (15-16 November). EU lawmakers and stakeholders will meet to discuss the cancer landscape in the EU and future policy actions. 

Kyriakides, alongside the Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Iliana Ivanova and Belgium Deputy Prime Minister Petra de Sutter will be some of the speakers.

Last but not least, on Saturday the EU marks Antibiotic Awareness day. The main objective is to focus on the actions needed to hit the 2030 targets for fighting antimicrobial resistance.

EU News

• • EU countries are divided over the inclusion of rape in violence against women directive
  • More action is needed to combat the rise in diabetes levels
  • EU Parliament to boost accessibility for people with disabilities.
  • €25 million to finance new medical products
  • Report: public health policies need better protection from tobacco industry interference

• EU countries are divided over the inclusion of rape in violence against women directive.

EU member states are still divided on the inclusion of rape as an EU-level crime in the proposed directive on combating violence against women. The third trilogue took place on Tuesday (14 November), with the following meeting already scheduled for 12 December. Each of the three EU institutions developed their legal opinions, with only the Council expressing concerns that including the criminalisation of non-consensual sex acts would overreach EU legal competencies. Rape is not included in the list of Euro-crimes, offences listed in Article 83 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), for which the EU has legal competence, such as corruption, terrorism or sexual exploitation. For the majority of countries that formed the initial Council’s position rape does not legally fall within the scope of sexual exploitation. For the rapporteurs, the Commission and civil society the countries’ position is not convincing enough. “I know that there are concerns about the interpretation of the legal basis. However, we have already used the exact same legal basis to criminalise non-consensual sexual activities with children, so there is no legal argument against using it now,” Helena Dalli, Commissioner for Equality, said on 9 October during the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO) in Luxembourg. A number of countries are expressing support for rape inclusion in the file from the beginning while several member states, such as Sweden, Ireland and Portugal recently decided to change their position in favour of including rape in the file. If a compromise cannot be found until the European elections in June 2024, when Belgium will be chairing the Council’s presidency, the second half of 2024 will fall under the leadership of Hungary, followed by Poland in 2025.

Giedrė Peseckytė looks deeper into the countries’ reasoning behind opposing the inclusion of rape based on the lack of consent in this article.

• More action is needed to combat the rise in diabetes levels

Tuesday was also World Diabetes Day, marked every year to raise awareness of diabetes and complications related to the disease. Approximately 32 million people in the EU live with diabetes, a number that has been growing steadily over the past years. “We must do more to respond to this chronic burden for people’s health, their quality of life and our healthcare systems overall. This is why the Commission is working hard to strengthen the prevention, diagnosis and management of diabetes, and to reduce health inequalities across the EU,” said EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides in a statement on Monday (13 November). To lower the burden of diabetes, Kyriakides cited the goals of the EU’s Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) Initiative from 2021, which is backed by €53 million from the EU4Health programme, as well as supporting collaborative action among EU member states and investing in research.

Read the full statement here.

• EU Parliament to boost accessibility for people with disabilities.

The European Parliament is set to implement rules to improve physical and digital accessibility to its premises around the EU for people with disabilities, according to an internal document seen by Euractiv. The 261 new accessibility measures would put in place a “single accessibility standard for the institution over and above local and national legislation with a view to ensuring equal treatment of all its buildings, to enable for their use by all users in an independent manner”, the document states. The Parliament plans to spend €13.8 million to implement the physical accessibility policy for the 2023-2024 period.

Eleonora Vasques has more on this here.

• €25 million to finance new medical products announced

Germitec, a company specialised in the design and development of hospital hygiene solutions, and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have signed a €25 million agreement to finance the development and commercialisation of new medical products. This was supported by the InvestEU programme. The agreement will finance products made to reduce cross-infection risks for patients and save healthcare professionals’ time as well as increase their safety. European Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni said: “Researching and developing innovative products requires sustained and significant investment. With the help of InvestEU, Europe can retain its position as a world leader in the development of cutting-edge medical technologies by supporting agreements such as this one.”

Read more in the announcement here.

• Report: public health policies need better protection from tobacco industry interference

There is still a lot of work to be done when it comes to limiting the influence of the tobacco industry on public health policies. On Tuesday (14 November), the fourth version of the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index, a global survey on how governments are responding to tobacco industry interference in national policy and protecting their public health policies from commercial interests, was released. Evaluating tobacco industry interference overall by giving countries a score from 0-100, where lower numbers show less interference, the EU countries included in the index are Romania (80), Italy (75), Bulgaria (73), Germany (70), Czech Republic (68), Poland (62), Sweden (61), Spain (56), Norway (43), the Netherlands (32) and France (32).

Read the report here.

News from the Capitals

THE HAGUE
Healthcare is considered a crucial topic for Dutch voters ahead of the national elections, however political parties have been reluctant to address it in their manifestos. Read more.

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WARSAW
Poland faces vaccine and treatment hurdles amid COVID-19 surge. The lack of adequate testing combined with delayed access to updated vaccines and difficulties in obtaining antiviral drugs pose severe challenges for Poland to combat the ongoing COVID surge, experts warn. Read more.

Poland expands prevention screening programs. As of 1 November, a broader group of Polish women will have access to preventive screenings for the early detection of breast and cervical cancer, but experts warn that more should be done. Read more.

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BRATISLAVA
Poor health prevention spending is crippling Slovak population’s health. Despite having one of the worst mortality rates from preventable and treatable causes in the EU, Slovakia’s non-communicable disease prevention expenditure remains among the lowest in the EU. Read more.

Slovakia’s long-standing vaccination issue gets urgently problematic. While the fifth round of COVID-19 vaccination encounters re-occurring delays in Slovakia, the country’s problem with immunisation seems to be rooted deeper. Read more.

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SOFIA
Bulgaria loses €80 million of EU funds to fight childhood cancer. Sofia has turned its back on €80 million from the EU Recovery Plan intended for the construction of a proton centre for the treatment of oncological diseases in children, sparking a conflict between the government and doctors. Read more.

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PRAGUE
Czech health insurers agree to ‘forget’ cancer survivors’ former diagnoses. Czech health insurance providers will not be able to penalise patients based on previous cancer diagnoses if they have successfully completed treatment, following a deal based on the “right to be forgotten” by ministers and insurance companies. Read more.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]

Read more with EURACTIV