EU Foreign Ministers met in Brussels on 27 October 2003 to discuss a number of issues from the IGC. To prepare the meeting, on 24 October 2003, the IGC Secretariat published on their website a summary document of the responses from Member States on non-institutional issues from the Constitutional Treaty.
Article I-3: EU objectives
The Greek government requested that ’public health’ be included
Article III-6: Services of General Economic Interest
Spain requested a return to the original terminology. Finland and the Netherlands joined the Spanish demand to delete the sentence mentioning European law. Sweden stated that while the concept was still undefined, there should be no legal basis. Austria wanted to highlight the central role of local and regional authorities as service providers
Health services : Finland requested a new paragraph stipulating that provisions of this subsection (i.e. freedom to provide services) shall not encroach upon MS’ responsibilities for the organisation and delivery of health services
Article III-179: Public Health
The Commission proposes enlarging the scope of measures supporting objectives in the field of public health (adopted by QMV) to:
measures to fight against major health scourges affecting more than one Member State, including communicable diseases and the release of biological or chemical agents with intent to cause harm; preventative measures against serious causes of danger to human health or of human disease or illness, when there is a significant impact at European level.
The French government proposed adding measures establishing high norms of quality and security for blood products and medical use provisions and measures relating to products with harmful effect, serious and recognised on health, with direct aim of the protection of public health
Finally the Latvian government requested the inclusion of a reference to the organisation and delivery of pharmaceutical care and to competence concerning narcotic and psychotropic substances.
Another meeting of the EU Foreign Ministers on IGC issues is scheduled for 18 November 2003.
