www.alkoholpolitik.ch

The European Parliament rapporteur on the EU Budget recently released his draft report on the future EU Budget. Health and civil society are not mentioned in the report. This is worrying as this report will be the European Parliament position on what the priorities of the EU should be for the coming 5 to 7 years.
The health community can find below a summary of the report as well as the list of key MEPs to contact in order to advocate for public health to be taken into account by the European Parliament.
The rapporteur Salvador GARRIGA POLLEDO MEP (EPP Spain), states that the structure of the future EU Budget (‘Multi Annual Financial Perspectives MAFF’) should reflect the EU priorities, particularly the Europe 2020. However, he also recognises that the Europe 2020 is not an all-inclusive strategy covering all Union policy fields and therefore stresses that other Treaty-based policies pursuing different objectives will also need to be duly reflected in the next MAFF.
According to EPHA and its partners, the report is problematic as it does not mention public health, funding for civil society and it only considers inclusion in its role to increase growth.
It is therefore of utmost importance that the European health community gets active to support appropriate European Funding for health in the coming years. The European Commission is likely to make a its proposal in June 2011 and actions beforehand towards the European Commission and MEPs are welcomed.
Source: Eurocare Newsletter March-April 2011/EPHA)