The EU Health Forum was established in 2001. The overarching goal of the Forum is to contribute to the development and implementation of actions to protect and improve the health of European citizens.
More specifically, the objectives of the Forum are :
To provide a communication channel between policy makers and stakeholders on EU health policy issues ;
To enable stakeholders to contribute to EU health policies ;
To support delivery of the EU Health Strategy ;
To enable health actors at national and local level to define EU level work that will support their agenda ;
To define European work packages.
The European Commission is now renewing the membership of the Forum and has launched a call for expressions of interest in membership.
Organisations must adhere to the criteria below in order to become Forum members.
Broad coverage of issues : Organisations should cover broad, horizontal issues which are of relevance to developing the Community’s health agenda and must demonstrate an interest in overall public health policy development.
Representitiveness : Organisations should be recognised as being able to speak for their sector. Their activities and membership should cover at least half (currently 14) and, ideally, all (currently 27) EU Member States. Organisations should be committed to extending their membership.
Active involvement : Each participating organisation is expected to be actively involved in the work of the Forum. Failure to do so will lead to discontinuation of membership.
Transparency : Organisations should apply the principles of transparency as set out in the Forum’s guiding principles published on the forum’s website, as well as those of the European Transparency Initiative.
Call for expressions of interest should be sent by email to sanco-health-forum@ec.europa.eu by 17 October 2009.
EPHA has been a member of the Forum since its creation in 2001 and we will be submitting an expression of interest to the commission. Having an EPHA as a continued member as well as providing the Secretariat of the Forum will enable EPHA members to maintain this effective means of engaging with the European Commission.
For more information please see http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_overv....
