The agenda was as follows:
Thursday 6th February, 15:00h
1. Presentation by the Praesidium of an initial draft set of articles of Part I of the Constitutional Treaty
2. Presentation by Mr Katiforis of the report by Working Group XI on Social Europe, debate (CONV 516/03)
Friday 7th February, 9:30h
3. The regional and local dimension (CONV 518/03)
4. Question time
5. Other business
1. Convention President Mr Valerie Giscard d’Estaign presented the new draft articles 1 to 16 of the Constitutional Treaty.
The new draft takes account of the Reports of the working groups on Legal Personality, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, Economic Governance, Complementary Competencies, the Subsidiarity principle and External Action.
Article 3 of the new draft (EU objectives) does not mention health, but Article 12 (page 8) lists Public Health as a shared competence for the EU and Member States. This is a step forward from the initial draft constitutional treaty which listed public health only as an area where the EU could take ’supporting action’.
However, because the Final Report of the WG on Social Europe has only just been published, it was not taken into account in the new draft Treaty articles. Mr George Katiforis, Chairman of the Working Group on Social Europe stated that the WG’s conclusions would need to be taken up in the new draft Treaty text.
The Convention members were invited to read these new draft treaty articles and to comment or amend them (all contributions will be published on the Convention website). The deadline for presenting comments or amendments by the members of the Convention is Monday 17th February.
The Praesidium will create the final version of these articles following a review of comments from Convention members.
2. Mr Katiforis presented the Report of the WG on Social Europe and stated that the WG had reached its conclusions and that no further revisions of the report were possible. This means that the recommendation of including ’public health’ into Article 3 and strengthening Article 152 remains the official result of the Working Group on Social Europe.
During the debate, Mr Katiforis emphasised the strong support of the majority of the members of the Social Europe WG for strengthening the EU competence on Public Health. He stated that the European Commission had convincingly pointed out the need for stronger legal basis on the Union action specifically regarding communicable diseases, bioterrorism and WHO agreements.
Comments from the Plenary sessions were divided into two main groups: those supporting Public Health as one of the Union’s future competencies (particularly on bioterrorism, cross-border diseases and WHO’s agreements) and those strongly opposed to any extensions of EU competencies on Public Health.
Amongst the first group: Mr Jurgen Meyer, Mr O’Sullivan, Mr Florgh, Mr Borrell Fontelles, Mr Bury, Ms Andreani, Mr Gijs de Vries, Mr Yves Cousquer, Mr Brok, Mr John Bruton (who passionately expressed his fears of an impending european influenza epidemic which will threaten citizens lives and which needs more competencies from the EU to be dealt with), a representative of the European Commission, Mr Per Dalgaard, Ms Lena Hjelm-Wallen, Mr Severin, Ms Puwak, and Ms Marietta Giannakou.
The second group that spoke out against an extension of EU competence on public health were:
* Miss Piia-Nora Kauppi (EP Substitute, EPP-ED), DOB 07/01/1975, Tel. +32 2 284 5894, Fax: +32 2 284 9894, pkauppi@europarl.eu.int
* Mr Timothy Kirkhope (EP Member, EPP-ED), DOB 29/04/1945, Tel: +32 2 284 5321, Fax: +32 2 284 9321, tkirkhope@europarl.eu.int
* Mr Dimitrij Rupel (Government Representative Slovenia, ELDR) DOB 07/04/1946, Tel: +386 1 478 2231, Fax: +386 1 478 2170, dimitrij.rupel@gov.si, mateja.norcic@gov.si
* Mr Robert Zile (Governement Representative Latvia, in between EPP-ED and UEN), Tel: +371 7095 690, Fax: +371 7095 693, roberts.zile@fm.gov.lv
The debate on the Report of the WG Social Europe continued on Friday morning but there were no further significant references to Public Health.
In concluding the debate on the WG Social Europe’s report, Mr Katiforis announced that he will be making amendments to the Praesidiums draft articles. He emphasized that the WG had no intention of creating a European SuperState to be imposed on Member States, but of recognising that the EU has core values and mechanisms to implement those values.
Mr Valerie Giscard d’Estaign closed the debate by reminding the members of the Convention that the Report of the WG Social Europe should be now integrated into the draft Constitutional text. He stated that the Praesidium would deliver to the next Plenary session (27/02/2003) a second draft of the draft Consitutional Treaty articles dealing with Institutional Reform and EU Policies.
The next steps for EPHA campaigning
Convention members have until Monday 17 February 2003 to make amendments to the draft Treaty articles. This means that we have to coordinate a critical mass of convention members to officially submit a contribution supporting the inclusion of ’public health’ into Article 3, as recommended by the WG on Social Europe.
It would be very effective for this communication to be personalised; eg phone calls/letters in local languages to the individual Convention Members from the different EU and CEE countries.
Action is suggested in the following way:
Make contact with the Convention members who had spoken out against public health to open a debate on the issue.
Make contact with the Convention members who spoke out in favour of public health to support and reinforce their position.
Make contact with National representatives of the Convention and the MEPs to request that they official contribute amendments to the draft Treaty
articles.
As always, we would appreciate being kept informed about any lobbying action that you undertake.
Regards
