EU health strategy should draw on local and regional experience

The Committee of the Regions brought attention during the Plenary Session held at the beginning of December to the fact Europe's regions have a wealth of experience in developing and implementing health strategies that remains untapped at the European level. The Committee also highlighted that the failure to fully involve sub-national authorities as legitimate partners in the development of future initiatives will undermine the European Commission's efforts to improve the quality of healthcare and health services across the EU.

The Committee of the Regions is committed to working closely with the European Commission on key issues such as disease prevention and health promotion, through the recently established technical platform, which brings together officials from local and regional administrations, experts and stakeholders, EU officials as well as interested CoR members to discuss a wide range of health-related issues with policymakers.

Speaking after the adoption of his opinion on the role of local and regional authorities in the implementation of the EU Health Strategy at the CoR Plenary Session in Brussels, rapporteur Adam Banaszak said that local and regional authorities are still insufficiently involved in the implementation of the European health strategy despite the key role that they play in, for example, providing health care services or developing prevention campaigns.

The European Commission could do much more to involve local and regional actors while dealing with health issues, such as inviting them to take part in working groups, and should build on their experience in areas such as assessing health inequalities between regions. But above all it needs to make sure that there is sufficient financial support for LRAs in the field of healthcare, not least by making it easier for them to access existing European funds for health-related programmes, in particular those involving cross-border cooperation. For the CoR it is also important for health objectives to be included in the Europe 2020 strategy with a view to achieving intelligent and balance development that can help combat social exclusion, said Banaszak.

One of the clear messages for EU Health Commissioner John Dalli, who was invited by CoR President Mercedes Bresso to present the European Commission's position in the Plenary Session, is the need for more effective indicators to assess the level of health inequalities across Europe.