Commission postpones healthcare plans

The European Commission decided to postpone the publication of controversial plans to open up the market for cross-border healthcare proposals until 2008 after facing threats from prominent Socialist MEPs over the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon next year.

"The European Commission has got cold feet over their draft proposals on healthcare as a result of concerns expressed by the Party of European Socialists. I am very happy that the Commission will now reconsider its proposal," said Danish MEP Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, president of the Party of European Socialists.

The proposals, which were scheduled for publication yesterday (19 December), have come under fire in recent weeks, with MEPs and trade unions accusing Commission President José Manuel Barroso of trying to introduce the liberalisation of public services through the back door after he ignored their demands last month for a framework directive providing legal protection for public services.

Officially, the delay was said to be caused by the crowded end-of-year Commission agenda. Unofficially, Barroso is said to have ordered the delay after facing threats from MEPs over the Lisbon treaty, which will be put to a referendum in Ireland and made subject to parliamentary approval in the other member states.

Martin Schulz, a German MEP and leader of Parliament’s Socialist group, made thinly veiled threats on the subject on Tuesday (18 December), during a speech addressed to MEPs and Barroso. "I’m not sure whether it makes sense one day before the Christmas break to quickly take such a decision in the Commission. Bolkestein [the services directive] was also passed quickly one day before the summer break and cost us the ratification of the constitution," Schulz said.

In a letter addressed to eight Socialist European commissioners last week (12 December), Rasmussen said: "I believe that if the Commission issues the proposed directive, in its current form, it will cause political havoc in some member states during the very sensitive period of ratifying the treaty and in the run up to the 2009 European elections."

Governments, including those of the UK and Belgium, fear that the directive, which would allow patients to travel routinely abroad for healthcare by 2010, will undermine their authority. UK Health Minister Dawn Primarolo has expressed reservations about patients going abroad to receive payment for the cost of a hotel and a plane fare, leaving the National Health Service (NHS) to foot the bill. Such a trend, the UK fears, would disrupt national healthcare and social security systems.

Under current proposals, member states will be able to limit numbers seeking healthcare abroad through authorisation schemes if they can prove that there would be "sufficient distortions" to their national system. But the UK would like to retain more powers of decision. A spokesperson for the UK department of health said: "We think it is critical that the legislative framework ensures that the NHS retains the ability to decide what care it will fund to meet the clinical needs of individual patients."

Germany is more amenable to proposals. "We agree to having medical services inside the scope of proposals but not care services," said a German diplomat.

Andreas Schwab, a German centre-right MEP, criticised the Commission’s decision-making process as "a disgrace". The Swede Margot Wallström, the commissoner for communication, he said, had been instrumental in pushing for delays.

But trade unions cheered the delay. "The draft proposal produced by the Commission was simply unacceptable, unacceptable to health workers, professionals, managers, interest groups and particularly to patients," said Carola Fischbach-Pyttel, general secretary of the European Federation of Public Service Unions. "One has to wonder how out of touch the Commission has to be to make such a miscalculation in a vital area like healthcare."

The European Commission decided to postpone the publication of controversial plans to open up the market for cross-border healthcare proposals until 2008 after facing threats from prominent Socialist MEPs over the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon next year.