Welcome to the September 2008 Newsletter
September has started the legislative year with a busy timetable in Brussels and across Europe. Of course, business-as-usual is overshadowed by the financial crisis and the threat of global recession. Job security is weaker than six months ago, leaving many Europeans facing an inability to repay mortgages or even make ends meet. The drop in pension and wage levels from a European recession threatens millions of families and brings poverty closer for many.
Already the corridors of Brussels are whispering with the spectre of a reduction in public spending. Health - and particularly addressing health inequalities - seems to some a luxury that we may not be able to afford in these difficult times.
We have a lesson from history: the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is the increase in social security that provided a buffer and guarantee in relation to average earnings. Enabling households to secure some small savings, staving off hunger and allowing Europeans to look for work is crucial at a time of uncertainty and the threat of another, if not greater, Depression of the 2000s.
Politicians of all parties would do well to remember that using Keynesian tactics of spending on the poor - raising social security benefits, strengthening the minimum wage, building more social housing, investing directly in jobs and reapportioning taxes - is a strategy that may not keep us out of recession, but will enable us to emerge from it.
The timing is right - discussions are starting on the ’post-Lisbon’ agenda. How to create a business plan for Europe to build (and improve) on the limping agenda of the last decade? ’Jobs, growth and innovation’ has been proven as inadequate and the mantra needs to become more sophisticated not only in terms of sustainability but also in terms of the quality of outcomes: social cohesion, lower inequalities and European well-being.
In times of crisis social outcomes become more, not less, important. Politicians, policy-makers and administrators alike would do well to remember this in the months to come.
Read all the online articles of our Newsletter for September 2008
EPHA members can find the following new information in the Members Only section:
EPHA discusses Patients’ Rights Directive with EPSU
NGOCAP meeting, 9 September 2008
ENVI Committee meeting on the Health Strategy 2008-2013, 9 September 2008
Vote on Foglietta Report of White paper on Nutrition, Overweight and Obesity, September 2008.
Please note that if an EPHA member would like to highlight their activities in the EPHA Newsletter, the deadline to submit a news item is Monday 20 October 2008. Please send your items to the EPHA Secretariat
