EU plans healthcare 'single market'
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EU plans to make it easier for European patients to seek healthcare within any member state
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BRUSSELS, Jun 26 (IPS) - The European Union is failing to prioritise health  and education in its plans for spending aid in poor countries,  according to a new study.
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"This partnership could literally save lives, by coordinating investment in healthcare that is free, public and well-staffed"  LONDON  - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on Wednesday a global health campaign to target aid more effectively at the basic needs of poor countries.The International Health Partnership, to be officially launched on September 5, aims to reduce child and maternal mortality and tackle diseases such as HIV/AIDS by building long-term health infrastructures in developing countries.The scheme will bring together donor countries like Britain, Germany, Canada and Norway as well as the World Bank and World Health Organisation. Rich nations would submit long-term health plans and international agencies would commit to better coordinate funding and efforts on the ground. Read more
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The European Union's health chief wants to introduce tougher food labeling rules to combat the growing problem of obesity across Europe, but is facing stiff political and industrial opposition.
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EU ministers agree a draft deal on tearing down barriers to cross-border provision of services.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition reached an agreement on a health reform plan Thursday, ending weeks of feuding that raised doubts over the government's future.Comment
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Santander Central Hispano's Â£8.6bn bid for UK lender Abbey will help create a single regional financial market, the European Union's Mario Monti says.
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The European Union said Thursday it will bring the food and advertising industry together with health officials to contain the increasing problem of obesity in Europe, where one out of every four children is obese.
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Food labelling should be standardised across Europe, the Commission says.
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BRUSSELS, Aug 25 (IPS) - Immigration policy threatens to divide EU member  states as the new European Commission looks for a common stand.
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The EU health commissioner calls for member states to copy Ireland and ban smoking in indoor public spaces.
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The European Commission has proposed a licensing system that would make it easier for European generic drug makers to provide treatments against killer diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis to developing countries, it said.
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The European Union's head office proposed new regulations Friday to allow the export of cheap copies of patented drugs to poor nations fighting AIDS and other killer diseases.
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The European Commissioner in charge of the single market, Charlie McCreevy, said Thursday he is restarting a consultation with industry with the aim of simplifying the European Union&#39;s approach to copyright levies.The move comes 14 months after the Commission abandoned a similar effort, following pressure from France and from lobbying by the music and film industries.Levies are slapped on a wide range of machines, ranging from photocopiers and re-writeable CDs and DVDs to mobile phones and MP3 players, in varying degrees in the 27 different countries. Their aim is to compensate rights holders when their copyright-protected material is copied.Levies on MP3 players, for example range from nothing to &#8364;15 ($21) depending on the rules in different E.U. countries. McCreevy said the current system is &quot;incoherent&quot; but he played down hopes of a total overhaul of the status quo.&quot;What is the right level? There are no easy answers,&quot; he said, during a press conference as he announced a consultation that will run until April 18. After hearing back from industry and from consumer groups the Commission will hold a conference in June &quot;to see if there is common ground&quot; to streamline the current system. &quot;Last time I suspended the initiative because there was no hope then. Now it should be possible,&quot; he said.Gadget makers welcomed the move. &quot;As an industry, we fully support fair and proper compensation for artists, creators and other rightholders. Industry is not advocating for private copy levies to be abolished, but has repeatedly demonstrated that the current system of &#39;rough justice&#39; is opaque, unfair to consumers and industry, and does not fulfill the stated purpose of fairly remunerating right holders,&quot; said Mark MacGann, director General of EICTA, the organization that represents the information and communications technology and consumer electronics industries in Europe.According to EICTA, levies collection has more than tripled since 2001, when the E.U. passed a copyright law designed to suit the digital age. The law permitted copying of copyrighted works such as music for personal use, but allowed individual member states to set levels of levies to help compensate artists.McCreevy said he had no plans to overhaul this law. &quot;The directive allows member states to set levies. There are no plans to do away with this. We just want to get some realism.&quot; He added: &quot;Hopefully people will come [to the conference in June] with an open mind.&quot;Meanwhile, McCreevy announced a parallel initiative to extend the period of copyright protection for performing artists from 50 years to 90 years. Stars that performed other people&#39;s songs in the 1950s, as well as the session musicians of that time, are at risk of being completely cut off from airplay and recording royalties just as they reach retirement age, McCreevy said.Extending the copyright period by 40 years won&#39;t have any impact on the price of music, McCreevy said.Both copyright-related initiatives will require political approval from national E.U. governments.
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It will take at least two years before the European Union is fully ready to deal with a flu pandemic, the bloc's disease control agency said Thursday.
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European Union leaders agreed Saturday on the key points of a treaty meant to strengthen the bloc's foreign policy role and eliminate unwieldy bureaucracy.
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Social services and ContactPoint included A document produced for London NHS reveals plans for extensive sharing of personal data between the NHS, social services, education and the police. Obtained by William Heath's Ideal Government blog, it says that the "Health and Social Care Integration Project" should fit with "known and future national developments... e.g. ContactPoint for Children, the Common Assessment Framework for Children, the Care Programme Approach, the Single Assessment Process for Older People, the Proposed Common Assessment Framework for Adults and its link with the NHS Connecting for Health National e-SAP Project.â¦