Mr Markos Kyprianou, the Commissioner designate responsible for health and consumer protection, was the last member of Jose Manuel Barroso’s team interviewed by the European Parliament.
On 8 October 2004 he faced a joint hearing in front of the Committee of Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and the Committee of Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) of the European Parliament (EP).
In his opening speech, Mr Kyprianou declared that his primary objective would be to create a climate of trust in the internal market.
All European citizens should be able to consume goods and enjoy services without being afraid of threats to their health. The Commissioner designate has also committed himself to ensure full implementation of the existing acquis in the field of public health, food safety and consumer protection.
Outlining his main fields of action, he mentioned protection against smoking, curbing alcohol consumption and fighting obesity, especially in young people and children. On tobacco, he pledged to aim for an EU-wide ban against smoking in workplaces and in other public areas, following the example of Ireland.
He expressed hope that by the end of his five-year term of office, all Member States would have achieved a similar level of protection against smoking. Other priority areas will include cooperation between national health services, patients’ rights, including the right to information and ensuring high standards of food.
Instruments of EU health policy
Chris Davies (UK, ALDE) stressed the difficulty of striking the right balance between Commissioner’s role of protecting the health of the people and the fact that a majority of legislative competences in the area of public health rest with the Member States.
Mr Kyprianou expressed his regret at the modest competencies of the EU in the field of health. At the same time, he emphasised that national efforts to protect health could be "harmonised" without binding legislation through mechanisms such as the "Open Method of Coordination" and peer pressure.
Frédérique Ries (ALDE, BE) noted that, despite considerable progress in the area of health and food safety, the EU had has tended to react to unforeseen developments, such as scandals on safety of food and blood products.
She asked the Commissioner designate how he intended to ensure a more proactive approach. Mr Kyprianou pointed out that there had already been a considerable movement towards prevention.
But DG SANCO has a limited capacity to foresee likely health problems and Mr Kyprianou emphasized that the most important approach is to listen to contributions from all sides: Member States, academics, civil society.
Tobacco and alcohol
MEPs welcomed Mr Kyprianou’s commitment to tackle uptake by young people of tobacco and alcohol. However, they highlighted the tensions between the promotion of the internal market and health protection.
Carl Schlyter (Greens, SE) drew the Commissioner’s attention to the paradoxical example of Sweden and Finland, which were forced to lower alcohol taxes following their entry into the EU, which resulted in significant increase in alcohol consumption.
Mr Kyprianou responded that relaxation in marketing of alcohol must not lead to a deterioration in public health.
Adamos Adamou (GUE/NGL, CY) asked the Commissioner how he planned to take on the powerful tobacco industry. I am not Don Quijote, and I am not getting involved in a battle that I am going to lose, responded Mr. Kyprianou.
He said that he would use all means possible to reduce tobacco consumption, involving both legal measures (such as ban on smoking in public places) and more informal methods (e.g. volunary agreements with the media not to glorify smoking).
Patient mobility
Cristina Gutierrez Cortines (EPP-ED, ES) pointed to the pressure that free movement of patients posed for healthcare systems and budgets of Mediterranean countries.
The Commissioner designate admitted that patient mobility could be a considerable burden on destination countries and promised to consider the idea of a green paper on the issue, as a follow-up to the ’high reflection process’.
Responding to a related question by Irena Belohorska (ID, SK), he said that an ideal solution would be to guarantee the same level of health care throughout the whole of Europe so that people would not have to seek medical treatment abroad.
Information to consumers
Several MEPs raised the issue of information to consumers. Hiltrud Breyer (Greens/ALE, DE) encouraged the Commissioner to launch a special Directive on this matter along the lines of the planned initiative on patient information.
Mr Kyprianou agreed that providing consumers with high-quality, comprehensible information was of crucial importance, especially with regard to children, who are the most exposed of all consumers.
He committed to working closely with consumer organisations in this area. Dan Jorgensen (PES, DK) and Dimitrios Papadimoulis (GUE/NGL, EL) pointed to potential risk of food fortification Directive.
In response, Mr Kyprianou stressed that food fortification was not bad in itself. The point is to ensure that unhealthy products are not advertised as healthy just because they are fortified by vitamins.
There is a close link between the legislation on food fortification and the Directive on health claims in foodstuffs. Only the combination of the two proposals can guarantee sufficient consumer protection.
Food Safety
Horst Schnellhardt (EPP-ED, DE) and Dagmar Roth-Berendt (PES, DE) expressed their concerns about the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA).
Against Parliament’s will, EFSA has been located in Parma - far away from existing EU institutions. Moreover, it is not independent enough to carry out its tasks effectively. Its statutes thus need to be changed along the lines of the Food and Veterinary Office in Dublin. On the first point, Mr Kyprianou noted that decentralisation of services and agencies was a general trend in the EU.
He also stated that the roles of EFSA and the Dublin Office differed significantly and it would thus not be appropriate to give them the same powers.
Consumer Protection
The second part of Mr Kyprianou’s hearing took place before the Committee for the Internal Market and Consumer Protection. The Chair of the Committee, Philip Whitehead, pointed to the tension between trying to ensure an effective Internal Market on the one hand and a high level of consumer protection on the other.
Mr Kyprianou noted that, in this respect, he was in a better position than the Committee members, since his portfolio covered only the latter concerns.
Among his priorities he listed improving information to consumers, enhancing consumer culture in the new Member States and ensuring that consumer protection is taken into consideration in all EU policies.
MEPs were curious to learn what legal instruments Mr. Kyprianou was planning to use in the area of consumer protection. Representatives of the three largest political groups emphasised Parliament’s opposition towards over-regulation resulting from full harmonisation of national legislations.
Toine Manders (ALDE, NL) recommended softer measures such as minimum standards and self-regulation of the market instead. Margrete Auken (Greens, BE) pointed to the paradoxical situation, whereby EU harmonisation could actually result in lower health, safety and environment standards, as is often the case in the Nordic countries.
The only solution is to set common minimum requirements, while leaving the Member States the right to adopt stricter criteria. In response to all these remarks, Mr Kyprianou declared that the methods employed had to depend on the area: we need full harmonisation in some areas and minimum standards on the other, he stated.
On the issue of how to increase the efficiency of policies, raised by Manuel Medina (PES, ES), Mr Kyprianou declared that he would closely control the work of various EU agencies in the field of consumer protection and cooperate with consumer organisations in implementing policies.
