Bid to end dispute over health funds

Date: 14/12/1995

A DISPUTE over the amount of money spent on health promotion programmes will dominate talks between representatives from the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers next week.

While few fundamental differences exist between the EU institutions over the content of the proposals to combat AIDs and cancer, and to promote healthy living in the European Union, the two are at loggerheads over how much should be spent on them.

Both sides agree that 49.6 million ecu should go towards programmes to prevent the spread of AIDs in Europe. But MEPs, following the European Commission's lead, want to spend 64 million ecu fighting cancer and 35 million promoting healthy habits over the next five years - five million ecu more in each case than EU health ministers say they are prepared to sanction. Despite the relatively small sums involved when compared to the total size of the EU budget, both sides insist they will not back down.

“We already compromised when we agreed to 64 million ecu, so I really do not see us agreeing to any further cuts,” said one MEP who will attend the conciliation committee charged with reaching an agreement.

Ministers and Euro MPs also disagree about who should review and implement the programmes once they are in place.

This issue, known in EU jargon as comitology, has held up countless dossiers and last year caused the first rejection of a proposal by the assembly under new Maastricht Treaty powers.

Safe sex will also be at issue at the conciliation meeting next Tuesday (19 December), amid divisions over whether condoms should be handed out free of charge as part of the EU's AIDs prevention campaign.

Catholic countries such as Ireland, whose religious leader Pope John Paul II forbids the use of condoms, are refusing to accept MEPs' demands for this to happen.