News/Press releases
Extramural meeting of the Committee on Health held in Brussels on 3 May 2006
On 3 May 2006, nine members of the Committee on Health, led by committee chair Dr Martina Bunge (PDS), took part in an extramural meeting in Brussels.
The main item on the agenda was a discussion of the impact on household care services of the European Commission’s amended proposal for a Directive on services in the internal market. The members of the Committee also expressed the view that the new proposal still failed to eliminate demarcation problems and legal uncertainty in the health sector. The Committee also deliberated on the Commission’s plans to bring out a specific legislative proposal on services in the health sector in the near future. These plans had been announced because of the removal of health services from the scope of the Services Directive and the increasing number of rulings from the European Court of Justice relating to patient mobility.
On this point the programme for the Brussels visit included talks with two Members of the European Parliament, Ms Evelyne Gebhardt of the Party of European Socialists and Dr Andreas Schwab of the European People’s Party, as well as with senior officials from the European Commission’s Directorates-General for the Internal Market and for Health and Consumer Protection. The Committee members were also able to discuss the medium-term agenda of European proposals in the field of health policy with representatives of the relevant Council working groups.
The Committee has begun a dialogue with the Federal Government on the outcome of its talks in Brussels, and this is being pursued on the basis of updated situation reports.
