13 May Health Council

Date: 23/05/1996

MEPS and member states are likely to clash in the coming months over the cost of setting up a new EU health monitoring system. The Parliament wants to allocate 20 million ecu of funding to the proposed new system, but ministers are refusing to grant more than 13 million. Both sides agree, however, on the need to monitor, among other things, life expectancy, tobacco consumption, occupational hazards and the effects of pollution. The programme would set up a network spanning the EU which would allow governments to share information on health trends.

WITH the dispute over the ban on UK beef exports showing no sign of being resolved, ministers agreed to step up efforts to study the human equivalent of mad cow disease, asking scientists to examine, in particular, the question of transmissibility. “There is a general recognition ... of the need to improve our understanding of the science,” said British Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell. Ministers agreed to set up a system for registering all cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and a committee of scientists to give policy advice. “We need better diagnosis, surveillance, collection of data, analysis and interpretation of field and laboratory results,” said Health Commissioner Pádraig Flynn.

ONCE again ministers failed to break the deadlock over plans to impose an EU-wide ban on the advertising of tobacco products. Most were unmoved by an Italian presidency compromise which proposed outlawing tobacco publicity on radios and in newspapers or magazines aimed at under-18s. A ban on tobacco advertising on television already exists in the Union. Portugal, Finland, Italy and France have extended that prohibition to cover all aspects of publicity, while other governments have imposed certain restrictions. The Commission has proposed a total ban on tobacco advertising in the Union except at points of sale, such as tobacco shops. But so far, it has failed to muster enough support in the Council of Ministers to get the draft directive through.