ESIP reports on a successful European Conference 2008

ESIP reponds to the public consultation on rare diseases

The joint position paper of ESIP and MEDEV in response to the European Commission public consultation on 'Rare Diseases: Europe's Challenge' can be downloaded here.

ESIP expresses its views on Social Reality in Europe

On 22 January 2008, ESIP submitted its views to the European Commission in response to the consultation paper of the Bureau of European Policy Advisors on "Europe's Social Reality" published in February 2007.

First and foremost, ESIP clearly reiterates its commitment to a social security, based on the principles of solidarity, universality, equity, accessibility and social cohesion that will continue to cover the whole of society and not only the most disadvantaged.

ESIP welcomes and supports the European initiatives concerning equality between men and women pointing out that the social security systems have to a large extent already adjusted to the changing role of women in society and in the economy by individualising pension rights for women, harmonising the retirement age for men and women and linking certain social services to the provision of parenting and care activities rather than to family status. ESIP expresses its concerns however about the increasing shift of social security from public to private systems, and even to completely voluntary systems, which disadvantage women due to the structuring of premiums according to sex.

With regard to benchmarking the social systems of the Member States, ESIP expresses its concerns about reliance on “firm indicators” which represent only a snapshot of the current situation and which do not provide information on cultural backgrounds and underlying values, on the (objective) quality of the systems analyzed or on anticipated trends.

It nevertheless welcomes a broad-based analysis of subjective “wellbeing” in the various Member States which could provide an interesting insight into the similarities and differences in the subjective perception of the social environment. However, ESIP warns against drawing political conclusions on backgrounds and determining factors for failures or successes of social policy intervention or even quality of performance of social protection systems based directly on individual perceptions. In this context, ESIP has repeatedly opposed the use of indicators to measure “self-reported health status” and “unmet need” for the purpose of benchmarking healthcare systems. The same care should be applied in other social fields.

Background
The European Commission initiated a consultation process on “Europe’s social reality” in February 2007 with a questionnaire designed to feed in to current or future initiatives at European level such as reviewing the European Social Agenda. A summary of the findings was published in a Commission Communication on 20 November 2007 (COM (2007)726 final).

ESIP's position paper can be downloaded by clicking here

For further information contact Wolfgang Schulz-Weidner at wolgang.schulz-weidner@esip.org

ESIP announces its European Conference 2008

ESIP will hold its 5th European Conference entitled "European citizenship, free movement and social protection – recent developments in the EU and perspectives towards 2020" on 20-21 November 2008 at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Rue Belliard 99, 1040 Brussels. For further information in English, please visit our News page ESIP Conference 2008 or click here.

For further information in German, please click here.

For further information in French, please click here.

ESIP responds to consultation on the future of pharmaceuticals

On 12 October, ESIP and MEDEV (Medicines Evaluation Committee) submitted their joint response to the European Commssion consultation paper on "The future of pharmaceuticals for human use in Europe: making Europe a hub for safe and innovative medicines" of 19 July. In their joint paper, ESIP and MEDEV comment on the challenges facing industry and patients raised by the Commission paper (globalisation, internal market, scientific advances in science and technology). They also pinpoint further issues that need to be addressed by the legislation including environmental issues and propose the following concrete actions to be carried out by the Commission in cooperation with the Member States and stakeholders:

a comprehensive reflection process to identify those parts of the European pharmaceutical industry that need strengthening in order to ensure the sustainable supply of safe and affordable medicines to patients in Europe and worldwide
increased transparency in all areas related to the supply of safe medicines in Europe through the establishment of publicly accessible databases e.g. on prices, pharmacovigilance and clinical trials data
patient reporting of adverse effects to improve the safety of medicines and increase patient involvement
no weakening on the current ban on DTCA of prescription medicines
establishing a programme of priority medicines and licensing pharmaceuticals of public health interest to improve access to needed medicines
improving Europe’s science base by establishing centres of excellence for research
implementing measures to increase the economic welfare of poorer countries to improve access to medicines
establishing a correction mechanism to counter monopoly markets as part of adjustments to the current EU regulatory framework

Click on the appropriate link to download the ESIP-MEDEV joint posiiton paper and the EC consultation document. For further information, please contact Chris Dawson.

ESIP calls for an EU quality label for patient information

In its reponse to the public consultation on the Commission “Draft report on current practice with regards to provision of information to patients on medicinal products" ESIP:

Calls to retain a strict ban on direct to consumer advertising (DTCA)
Urges the European Institutions to keep Article 88, paragraphs 1 and 3 of Directive 2001//81/EC as amended by 2004/27/EC unchanged
Calls on the Commission and the Member States to improve public awareness of and access to existing sources of high-quality, evidence-based and patient-centered information
Encourages the Commission and the Member States to establish a network of competent authorities to exchange good practices and existing information
Supports the idea of a quality label for good information to patients and asks the Commission to make a feasibility study for its implementation

ESIP's position was submitted to the European Commission on 29 June.
To download ESIP's full submission, please click here.