Wealth and Equity

In a powerful address to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Forum on Advancing Global Health in the Face of Crisis, 15 June 2009, the Director General of the WHO called for "transformational change" in the policies that govern international relations. Blind faith in economic growth and gain has been misplaced and now, in light of the financial crisis, global leaders should recognise health as a worthy pursuit in its own right.
Many of the points made in the speech, Dr Margaret Chan (...)

When the growth and jobs strategy was launched in March 2000, EU leaders pledged to make "a decisive impact on the eradication of poverty" by 2010.
And yet too many people still live in poverty with no access to basic services such as health care. 79 million Europeans live below the poverty threshold, 19 million of whom are children. This violates EU principles of solidarity and social justice.
Poverty in Europe - an unbearable reality
In 2007, the at-risk-of-poverty rate after social (...)

On 7 May, the EU held the Employment Summit in which the Team Presidency (the Czech, Swedish and Spanish governments), the Commission, and social partners were tasked with coming up with concrete ideas to fight unemployment. The summit identified ten actions to fight unemployment and create new jobs.
Background information
To prepare the summit, the European Commission organised a series of workshops with the current and future EU Presidencies (held in Madrid on 15 April, in Stockholm on 20 (...)

Health ministers, high-level policy-makers, partners and experts meet in Oslo, Norway to discuss how the economic crisis will affect health and social protection in Europe. They will identify policies to respond to the crisis and promote health, as well as reduce poverty and inequalities.
The meeting, ‘Health in times of global economic crisis : implications for the WHO European Region’ is taking place on 1–2 April 2009. It is organized by the WHO Regional Office for Europe (...)

This rise of prices has had dramatic consequences for EU citizens. In June 2008, the Summit urged the Commission to propose a policy response to the hike in food prices. As a consequence several measures have been taken : the reform of the EC Food Programme amending the 1987 scheme and the EC Communication on food prices in Europe.
First measure : Commission to expand food programme
As an immediate action addressing the population that has been hardest hit, the Commission amended the Food (...)

The world has been by a financial which has now turned into an economic and social crisis. What are the causes of the crisis ? Who is affected ? What is the EU doing to tackle it ?
Background
The financial crisis of 2007–2009, often referred to as "the credit crunch" or "credit crisis", began in July 2007 when a loss of confidence by investors in the value of guaranteed mortgages resulted in a liquidity crisis that prompted a substantial injection of capital into financial markets by (...)

At the 23rd Forum on Global Issues on 18 March 2009, Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, clearly addressed the health impacts of the current global crises - the financial crisis, climate change and the changing microbial world. Here are some excerpts.
The crises are of our own making
"The world is in a mess, and much of this mess is of our own making. Events such as the financial crisis and climate change are not quirks of the marketplace, or quirks of (...)

Concerns are growing among European Commission and health sector representatives that the economic crisis may impinge on public health provision. Short-term pressures on government spending, combined with the broader effects of the economic crisis, could have dramatic negative long-term consequences for health.
Rumours are circulating that EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou sent a letter to her colleagues in the Commission, urging them to emphasise the need to act to address rising (...)

European antitrust investigators are expanding the scope of a major inquiry into the €484 billion pharmaceutical market in a bid to determine whether companies are blocking generics makers from getting less-expensive medicines to market quickly.
Neelie Kroes, the European Union competition commissioner, is trying to determine whether drug companies’ efforts to block competitors by extending patents were also distracting them from developing new medicines, which have been slow in (...)

The Health and Consumer Protection Directorate of the European Commission recently published a study paper on “The contribution of health to the economy in the European Union”.
In the words of Commissioner Markos Kyprianou, the publication “confirms the high cost falling on Europe’s economies as a result of illness [...]. Of particular relevance to Europe, with its ageing population, [the authors] show how poor health increases the likelihood of early retirement. Taken (...)