A Written Declaration on EU Workforce for Health opened for signatures on Monday 17 May at the European Parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg.
**Update July 2010: Declaration 40/2010 reaches 121 signatures**
EPHA is pleased to announce that the Written Declaration on EU Health Workforce has accumulated a total of 121 signatures from MEPs.
EPHA encourages all members to contribute to a final push ahead of the September Plenary session, so that as many MEPs as possible are targeted for support by 17 September 2010.
The next Plenary session – the final session before the declaration lapses – takes place between 6 and 9 September. Therefore, all letters and statements need to be sent in the week beginning Monday 23 August, in order to reach MEPs in time to influence their agendas.
All supporting documents can be found below and an updated list of contact details will be forwarded to members shortly.
**Update: Background documents for member advocacy finalised**
Following the meeting of the Health Professionals Working Group on Wednesday 26 May, EPHA encourages all members and partners to support Declaration 40/2010 by sending letters and statements calling upon MEPs to sign.
To this end, EPHA has prepared:
– a template letter, to be distributed to members and partner organisations, (attached)
– a briefing document, explaining the process and effect of a Written Declaration (attached)
– an excel sheet with the e-mails and phone numbers of all MEPs sorted out by countries (attached)
The three documents are geared to help you and your members to target MEPs in the comong months.
The optimal time to collect signatures is during the plenary sessions in Strasbourg, of which there are three before the Declaration lapses, when the texts are displayed at the entrance of the Parliament. Therefore, letters and statements are best sent the week before these sessions, on the dates listed below:
– 1-7 June, in preparation for the 14-17 June plenary session
– 21-28 June, in preparation for the 5-8 July plenary session
– 23-30 August, in preparation for the 6-9 September plenary session
For further information please contact eleanor@epha.org.
Political and policy context: the EU institutional framework
On 10 December 2008, the European Commission adopted a Green Paper on the EU Workforce for Health and launched a public consultation on this matter. The European Public Health Alliance showed extensive commitment to the issue, organising a comprehensive internal consultation and issuing its public response in March 2009, which underlined the challenges faced by health professionals in the European Union and wider Europe and proposed a series of recommendations to the European institutions. However, since the EC Green Paper was issued, no further progress on this dossier has been achieved at the level of the European Commission, despite the findings of the consultation and the challenges identified by the EC itself.
At the Council level, the health workforce dossier has the potential to be re-launched, with the Belgian Presidency taking the Council’s leadership in the second half of 2010. The Ministerial Summit on 9-10 September 2010 will input the Council Conclusions EU Workforce for Health, which are expected to be adopted by the end of the year.
In a process strongly supported by EPHA, a number of leading Members of the European Parliament, coming from various political groups, EP committees and EU Member States, initiated a Written Declaration on the EU Workforce for Health. If adopted, this written declaration has the potential to influence the Council Conclusions and to re-launch the debate in the European Commission, as well as the various EU Member States level.
The Written Declaration on EU Workforce for Health (40/2010)
Successfully tabled by five MEPs – Oana Elena Antonescu MEP (Romania, EPP), Jean Lambert MEP (UK, Greens/EFA), Antonyia Parvanova MEP (Bulgaria, ALDE), Marc Tarabella MEP (Belgium, S&D) and Thomas Ulmer MEP (Germany, EPP) – the Written Declaration bears the number 40/2010 and is open for signatures between 17 May and 17 September 2010.
This important document, in line with the recommendations from the public health community put forward by EPHA in its 2009 position on the EU workforce for health, calls on the European Commission and the Governments of the EU Member States to:
“- ensure that there is sufficient comparable data for EU wide health workforce planning,
– establish effective and sustainable recruitment and retention strategies in the health sector,
– ensure that all health professionals have access to continuing professional development and that professional qualifications meet agreed criteria,
– promote the role of health professionals to identify and implement strategies that facilitate professional and knowledge mobility while recognising the health professionals’ contribution to achieve optimal health outcomes”.
The declaration is available in all EU official languages, and can be accessed here.
Background information on written declarations in the European Parliament
A written declaration is a text of a maximum of 200 words on a matter falling within the European Union’s sphere of activities. MEPs can use written declarations to launch or re-launch a debate on a subject that comes within the EU’s remit. In this context, a group of up to five MEPs can submit a written declaration by presenting a text to be signed by their colleagues. In order for the text to be adopted, it needs to be signed by more than half of the total number of MEPs. However, MEPs will mainly sign such a document during the plenary sessions, when the text is actually presented at the entrance of the meeting room. If the declaration is signed by a majority of the MEPs, it is forwarded to the President, who announces its adoption in plenary and forwards it to the institutions named in the text.
Written declarations are political texts and, if adopted and therefore signed by more than half of the MEPs, represent a strong political engagement and commitment at the European Parliament’s level. They are not legally binding instruments, but their political value is not to be ignored.
Only an average of 10% of the submitted written declarations manage to gather the necessary support, especially given the time limits in order to collect the signatures (i.e. three working months). They therefore require important advocacy accompanying the signatures collection process, both from the submitting MEPs and from supporting external organisations.
Next steps within EPHA
In the framework of the implementation of the EPHA Work Plan, the EPHA secretariat worked closely with its members in order to identify actions that can contribute to the achievement of the EPHA objectives in this area. The EPHA support to this written declaration is part of this implementation plan and builds on previous EPHA action, including the previous Working Group on health professionals meetings, joint EFN (European Federation of Nurses) -EPHA collaboration on health workforce and EPHA policy and position papers developed and adopted by its members.
A new meeting of the Working Group on Health Professionals (WG-HP) will take place on 26 May in Brussels, which will discuss in depth the coordinated strategy needed in order to ensure the collection of the MEPs signatures. Previous discussions of the Working Group already indicated a number of tools that will be used during the campaign promoting this written declaration, including: regular attendance of the EP plenary sessions in Strasbourg during the signature process of the text; letters and public statements to MEPs and the wider audience from EPHA, EPHA members and EPHA partners, other communication tools to be further developed in order to support the efforts of the five submitting MEPs. Moreover, EFN has already developed an internal plan to support the Written Declaration adoption following their General Assembly decisions in April 2010, building on its previous strategic involvement in the EU processes on the matter and within the EPHA Working Group. The WG-HP will also look into similar practices from other members and partners in order to gather extensive support in the campaign to support the Written Declaration 40/2010.
In the wider framework of its actions in the area of health professionals, EPHA will support and co-organise together with the European Federation of Nurses (EFN) an event in the European Parliament on 27 October, which will draw the conclusions of the political and policy processes in this field from 2008-2010, with a view to feed in the wider European debate before the formal adoption of the Council Conclusions on the EU Workforce for Health.
