Secretariat News November 2009

Activities and events

Barroso announces new Commission President Barroso announced on Friday 27 November the new Commission and their portfolios (’Barrosso II’). Amongst the changes impacting on public health is the Maltese Commissioner-designate (see above) John Dalli and the former Health Commissioner, Androulla Vassiliou is now moving to Cuture, Youth and Multiculturalism. The main concerns from the health community are the appointment of Janez Potocnik as Environment Commissioner, given his previous record , although the appointment of Viviane Reding as the Commissioner for Justice and Fundamental Rights is broadly perceived as a positive development by civil society. More information can be found on the EPHA article

Maltese John Dalli new Commissioner for Health and Consumers Amongst the announcements from President Barroso, is the position of Health and Consumer Commissioner John Dalli from Malta. Mr. Dalli is an experienced Maltese politician, most recently Minister for Social Affairs. Rumours in Brussels are that he is one of the targets for pro-industry MEPs, in an attempt to reshuffle the political portfolios. His new responsibilities include pharmaceutical and medical devices policies, biotechnology and genetically modified organisms, as well as cosmetics. More information on his new role and his profile can be found here

Meeting with John Dalli – incoming European Commissioner for Health The EPHA President and Secretary General have received a request from incoming Health Commissioner, John Dalli, for a meeting on Wednesday 9 December in Brussels. More information on the outcomes of this meeting will be made available in the Winter newsletter in early February.

Meeting with Jo Leinen MEP – Chair of the ENVI Committee On 12 November, EPHA President Archie Turnbull and Secretary General met with Jo Leinen MEP, Chair of the ENVI Committee. The discussions focused on EPHA’s priorities for the coming period (including pharmaceutical policy, health services, public health, climate change and better regulation). Mr. Leinen is a senior member of the European Parliament, with a strong reputation in the field of environmental protection as well as in EU constitutional issues. The meeting was an opportunity to introduce EPHA to him and to highlight the main issues of concern for the public health community in the forthcoming term.

Health Intergroup Currently the Secretariat is working to secure the Intergroup, which involves a number of processes within the Parliament. As in October, once again the Secretariat travelled to Strasbourg to try and secure as many MEPs as possible to support the group. Informal contact with the parties and MEPs since this visit suggest that securing the group is becoming increasingly unlikely. Although information is still unconfirmed, information emerging from the groups is showing that this is unlikely to pass through.

Post-Lisbon Strategy On 24 November the European Commission published a public consultation document on a post-Lisbon strategy for the European Union, called “EU 2020”. This is a once-in-ten-year opportunity to influence the future direction of the EU. The post-Lisbon strategy will act as a business plan for Europe, and it is crucial that the health and well-being of citizens is at the centre. The deadline for responses to the consultation is 15 January 2010. EPHA will be submitting a response and will be working with the EU Health Policy Forum to submit a response on its behalf. More information can be found here

Health Strategy Following the EUHPF meeting (please see previous newsletter), EPHA drafted the response to the Swedish Presidency, which was consulted with EPHA members and EUHPF members. This is a letter outlining an opinion from the Forum on the implementation of the Commission’s Health Strategy, and suggestions and recommendations for the Council, Commission and Parliament on the implementation of this Strategy going forward. The final response can be found here

Health Inequalities On 25 November 2009, the EPHA Secretariat organised a workshop titled "Tackling wider determinants of health: effective policy change" as part of the 2nd Annual Public Health Conference in Lodz, Poland. The workshop provided a forum to discuss appropriate actions to reduce health inequalities and how to implement these actions. The workshop speakers included the European Commission, the University of Oxford and a Roma representative from Serbia. The workshop was moderated by Monika Kosinska, EPHA Secretary General, and was well received. A report from the workshop can be found here

Pharmaceutical Policy One of EPHA’s strategic advocacy objectives has been the transfer of pharmaceutical policy from the political portfolio of the Commissioner for Industry to the Commissioner for Health. On Friday 27 November, President Barroso announced the new Commission including a transfer of competence of not only pharmaceuticals and medical devices, but also biotechnology and cosmetics. DG Sanco has lost, however, marketing and consumer law, which has been transferred to DG Justice. EPHA issued a press statement that can be found here which has been picked up by Brussels, Maltese and specialist press.

Food Policy EPHA participated in the final meeting of the EURO-PREVOB project as a policy adviser on 3 December. The meeting brought together project partners and advisers to discuss the work conducted to date and consider strategies for taking this work forward. The project aims to link scientific knowledge to policy making to reduce the burden of obesity in Europe. Partners involved in this project include the WHO Europe Office and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Please find the full article online here

Alcohol policy A coalition of twelve European public health and safety umbrella organisations, led by EPHA members EUROSAFE and EUROCARE, have launched a call for action to reduce alcohol-related harm in Europe. In advance of a meeting of the EU Ministers for Health, where the Swedish Presidency will present proposals for a stronger EU alcohol policy, the coalition calls for concrete action on the pricing, availability, access and marketing of alcoholic beverages. Both the main press release and EPHA’s statement were picked up by Brussels press.

Global health - GAVI Partners Forum Hanoi, Vietnam EPHA was invited by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) to attend its partner forum meeting in Hanoi. Launched in 2000, the GAVI Alliance is a global health partnership representing stakeholders in immunisation from both private and public sectors: developing world and donor governments, private sector philanthropists such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the financial community, developed and developing country vaccine manufacturers, research and technical institutes, civil society organisations and multilateral organisations like the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank. The three day meeting enabled EPHA to broaden its contacts with the partners of GAVI, both Government and NGOs. The PM-GH took the floor during the plenary session on CSO engagement to strongly defend the role and added value of Civil Society Organisations in continuing to advocate for the universal right to health. In the CSO meeting that followed the partner forum EPHA strengthened its links to other CSOs in both the global north and the global South.

Global Health - Organisation for European Coordination and Development (OECD) meeting, Paris EPHA participated at a high level workshop in the OECD in Paris on "Making aid make a difference". EPHA’s role was to present the lessons from the health sector and in particular the insights gained from the Action for Global Health activity on "health as a tracer sector for aid effectiveness" within the OECD. Present at the meeting were several ministers from developing countries as well as heads of development cooperation agencies from Sweden, the UK, and France. A senior advisor to WHO head Margaret Chan also attended the workshop. EPHA was able to contribute to the meeting the research commissioned by Action for Global Health and highlight the lessons the health sector can give to the wider aid community and also was able to raise its profile with senior decision makers.

The Global Health Policy Forum The November GHPF meeting covered the launch of the WHO report on women’s and girls’ health, policy coherence for development and a presentation of a new framework call from the European Commission for Africa. The debate on Policy Coherence included presentations from both the EPHA PM-GH and EPHA Member Health Action International (HAI) on what policy changes were necessary to improve policy coherence, particularly with respect to trade policy with access to medicines being impacted by Intellectual Property (IP) demands (TRIPS plus provisions) in bilateral trade negotiations.

EU Health Policy Forum Following the update in last month’s report, EPHA as the Secretariat of the EUHPF led two very successful processes, enabling the EUHPF to respond rapidly to two opportunities. Please find these outcomes, the letter to the Swedish Presidency: and the letter on the Public Health Programme here.

Annual Public Health Conference – Ĺódź, Poland EPHA attended the APHC in Ĺódź, organising three workshops and participating in an additional three as well as a plenary session on the environment and health. The conference had a number of good outcomes, and EPHA’s participation was well received. EPHA was visible at the conference, and a number of individuals expressed interest in our work and possible membership. A write-up of the conference can be found; a report from the ‘research into policy’ workshop can be found here; the health inequalities workshop report can be found here; and finally the report in English from the advocacy in Poland workshop can be found here and in Polish here. EPHA met with the local organisers for 2010 (Amsterdam) conference to discuss further involvement for the Secretariat and EPHA members in next year’s conference.

Partnerships

Public Health Programme The Secretariat is preparing itself for the 2011 Call for Proposals under the Public Health Programme as this expected before the end of 2009. Current information from the Commission and European Agency for Health and Consumers is that this will have a deadline for submissions in March 2010.

The Seventh Framework Programme There is currently a call for proposals open under DG Research with two strands of potential interest to EPHA: “Science into Society” and "Social Platform on Sustainable Lifestyles". EPHA is in discussions with EUPHA on submission of a project on capacity building amongst civil society on issues of research.

Standing Committee of European Doctors (CPME) EPHA President Archie Turnbull and Secretary General, Monika Kosinska, met with Dr. Konstanty Radziwill President-elect for CPME on 24 November whilst in Warsaw. EPHA is exploring opportunities for closer collaboration with CPME in future.

European Food Standards Agency (EFSA) Stakeholders’ Platform On 1-2 December, EPHA participated in the first meeting of the newly-reformed European Food Safety Authority Stakeholder Consultative Platform in Parma. Points discussed over the course of the two-day meeting included the health claims assesments, EFSA’s risk assesments on GMOs, nanotechnology and the future of the Stakeholder Platform. Please find the full article here

Staff

Recruitment process for Policy Officers for EU Systems and Health Systems Both posts have now been recruited with the Naroesha Jaggesar starting in January as Policy Officer for Health Systems, whereas Nina Prunier started in November as Policy Officer fo EU Systems. Please read more about Nina here

Agriculture and Health Consortium Manager As part of the 2010 Strategic Priorities and Work Plan, EPHA is delighted to announce that Robert Pederson will join EPHA in January 2010 as the Agriculture and Health Consortium Manager.

Review of staff competences and job descriptions The Secretariat is currently developing a proposal for an ‘ideal’ Secretariat including revised competences frameworks, job descriptions and person specifications in line with the 2010-2014 Business Planning process. This will discussed amongst the Secretariat and Executive Committee and presented in the General Assembly in 2010.

Members and Governance

ExCo meeting November The ExCo met in Ĺódź, Poland for its quarterly meeting on 24-25 November. The main outcomes from the meeting include the decision to move the Secretariat to larger premises, the approval of the process to take forward a ’for-profit’ function of EPHA, the approval of the new fee policy, the decision for a 14 January ExCo Away Day in Leuven, Belgium with approval of the draft agenda for the day, the approval of the Business Planning process for the 2010-2014 Business Planning period, the approval of increased involvement within the Better Regulation advocacy process, decisions on EPHA membership of other networks, the establishment of a Finance Sub-Committee and Governance Sub-Committee for this ExCo term and a next meeting date of 3 March 2010. The minutes from this meeting will be available shortly.

Policy Coordination Meeting - November On 4 November 2009, EPHA held its monthly Policy Coordination Meeting, which gathered EPHA members to discuss our policy and advocacy. Please find more information available here

EPHA Capacity Building Toolkit EPHA is developing a capacity building toolkit as part of the work to develop public health advocacy in Central and Eastern Europe. This paper outlines the various steps needed in developing successful capacity building, in public health advocacy, at national level. The guidance is based on the review of EPHA’s work in this field over the organisation’s 15 years of experience, and includes outcomes from the trialed methodology at the 2009 Annual Public Health Conference. This will be available to members in early 2010.

EPHA Directory of NGOs During the summer 2009, EPHA started to compile a Directory of its members for printing for the new Parliament. This is now awaiting final approval before finalisation and should be available early next year.

Re-organisation of EPHA website At the end of October, EPHA started the process of reorganisation of the website to make it more user-friendly. The contractor will develop a site map for the new website which will be built as a ‘dummy’ site in early December, and will be tested by selected users until the end of January 2010. The successful tested version will be used as a template for the transfer over of the content on the current site throughout 2010 with the final version of the website becoming live at the end of 2010.