July 2004 newsletter

Welcome to the July 2004 edition of the EPHA newsletter.

In Secretariat news, Manon Favrin completed her internship at EPHA and Fouad Hosni joined the EPHA team as Office Manager.

On 15 July 2004, Commissioner Byrne launched a major consultation exercise on the future of health strategy in Europe. The deadline for response is 30 September 2004 and is an opportunity to provide input into the planned Commission Communication on health strategy which will appear in early 2005.

At the European Parliament the new political groupings were revealed at the first Plenary session and committee meetings of the new session in late July. The chairman and membership of the Committees was agreed after negotiation between the political groups.

EPHA Secretariat continues preparation work for the workshop ’Internal market and health: a contradiction in terms?’ being organised on 8 September 2004 in the Hague as part of a wider Conference on balancing health, social and market issues.

In the Members only section of the website there is full report of the launch of the Commissioner’s policy consultation on health, a new dossier on the European Parliament with an updated overview of the political groups, reports from the first Committee meetings and a list of MEPs with health-relevant experience or interests.

August will be a quiet month but EP work continues on preparing questionnaires for the new Commissioner nominees who will be questioned in hearings in the relevant Committees in October 2004. All 25 Member States have now named their candidates for the post and the new line-up has senior political figures (ex Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers and Finance Ministers) as well as more women than the previous Commission.

 Read all the online articles of our newsletter for July 2004.