1951 - Health and safety at work
Activities in the field of safety and health at work begin at the same time as the European Coal and Steel Community is established.
1987 - Early programmes
"Europe Against Cancer" begins. It represents the first European action programme aimed specifically at improving public health throughout the Union. An initiative to deal with "the scourge of drugs misuse" starts later the same year followed by the "Europe Against AIDS" programme four years later.
1992 - Maastricht Treaty
Article 129 of the Maastricht Treaty gives the European Commission a degree of legal competence in the area of public health protection.
1993 - Health framework published
The Commission publishes a framework for action in the field of public health identifying eight priority areas for Community action: cancer, AIDS, health promotion-education-training, drug dependence, health monitoring, rare diseases, pollution-related diseases, accidents and injuries. The Commission gives a commitment to produce regular reports on health across the full range of its activities and responsibilities.
1996 - BSE emerges
Bovine spongeform encephalitis (BSE) is identified by the UK government as a threat to human health in 1996. The European Parliament launches an inquiry into the failure of the Community to protect the health of EU citizens. Commission President Jacques Santer responds to EP criticism by undertaking to put health at the fore in Europe.
1998 - Treaty of Amsterdam agreed
Article 152 of the Treaty of Amsterdam incorporates a new public health article which requires the Union to promote (as well as protect) the health of EU citizens.
1999 - Health Directorate established
The new European Commission president, Romano Prodi, makes health protection a priority for the European Commission. The Directorate of Health and Consumer Protection is established and a new European food safety regime and agency are presented as key objectives.
2000 - Health policy proposals
European Commission publishes proposals for the development of a public health policy and adopts a Communication on the Health Strategy of the European Community. The Communication describes the Community’s role in public health as follows: "… to complement (Member States’) efforts, to add value to their actions and in particular to deal with issues that Member States cannot handle on their own. Infectious diseases, for example, do not respect national borders; neither does air and water pollution."
2000 - EU-WHO Memorandum
Commission signs a Memorandum of Agreement with WHO in December 2000. In May 2002, high-level EU-WHO consultations take place in Brussels. New areas of collaboration are identified as poverty, EU enlargement, and children’s health.
2002 - New public health programme agreed
A generic, three-strand public health programme is agreed with a budget of Euro 312 million for a six year programme (2003-2008). MEPs successfully demand increased measures to "reduce the threat of diseases and other health hazards, including bio-terrorism, from crossing borders". They also call for "health to be taken more fully into account across all Community policies" and endorse the Commission’s consultation proposals, especially with European-level non-governmental organisations.
Sources:
"Health Care Policies and Europe, the implications for practice" by Carol Ludvigsen and Kathleen Roberts (1996);
"Recent progress with the European public health agenda", by Andrew Hayes, EPHA President, article in Parliament Magazine, July 2002;
"A Union for Health: Strengthening the European Union’s role in health" by Ed Randall, Centre for Reform, London (United Kingdom), July 2002; and
EUROPA - Public Health website
Where is health policy?
Member States tend to see the EU as a resource to support their health policies rather than as an entity with an independent health policy of its own. (1) The absence of an EU health policy has had unfortunate consequences. The European Court of Justice has found itself defining important aspects of European health care and health protection policy. For instance, it ruled on the reimbursement of health services and treatment purchased abroad (e.g. Kohll and Decker) under the "free movement of services" internal market legislation (see Update 62 on Health Care). Another instance was the annulment of an EU directive banning tobacco advertising, which it deemed to go beyond the EU’s limited competence in health.
(1) "European Union health policy on the Even of the Millennium" by Lyndsay Mountford, Eurohealth Vol. 4 No 5 Winter 1998.
