Organ transplants: standard regulationImproving the quality and safety of organs across Europe, increasing organ availability, and making transplant systems more efficient and accessible. The EU’s three key challenges will be pursued with a series of measures adopted by the Commission consisting in a 10 point Action Plan, to be implemented over the period 2009-2015, “to work with Member States on strengthening organ donation and transplantation systems in Europe”. “These measures are all about saving lives”, explained Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou. “We want to reassure citizens and patients that the EU and Member States are working together to maximise efforts to provide high quality and safe transplantation systems”. According to the Executive, “for many patients, organ transplantation represents the only life-saving treatment available”. At present, 56thousand patients across the 27 Member States are waiting for a suitable organ donor. “It is estimated that every day 12 people die while waiting for transplantation”. The directive “provides a clear legal framework. Concretely, this means that in every Member State a national competent authority will be created or designated to ensure compliance EU quality and safety standards. These standards include establishing a traceability system of human organs”. To facilitate exchange of human organs, data collection on specific organ characteristics will be standardized. The goal of this Directive is “to minimise the risk for the organ transplant recipient”, optimise the allocation of organs, and “to provide the transplant surgeon with the necessary information to make the best choice”. Safer Internet: protecting minors online 75% of children aged between 6 and 17 years “are already online, while 50% of 10-year-olds have a mobile phone”. At the same time, “60% of European parents are worried that their child might become a victim of online grooming and 54% that their children could be bullied online or via mobile text messages”. On December 9 the EU Commission released the findings of a recent Eurobarometer survey, the same day in which the EU gave the green light to its “Safer Internet” program. The program will be enforced on January 1st. Safer Internet 2009-2013 “aims to protect children in the ever more sophisticated online world, and empower them to safely use web services like social networking, blogging, and instant messaging”. The program will “fight grooming and bullying by making online software and mobile technologies more sophisticated and secure”. The 55-million euro four-year program envisages public-awareness campaigns (“empowering young people, their parents and teachers to make responsible choices online by advising them on relevant precautions to take); providing the public with a network of contact points that could be reached either via a website or a phone number, and fostering self-regulatory initiatives in this field. Foodstuffs: decreasing consumer prices Modernizing the food and agriculture sector, stepping up competitiveness, opening the market to international products, establishing comparable consumer prices. These are the guidelines of the report approved this week by the EU Commission “envisaging the improvement of the food distribution chain in order to decrease consumer prices”. On the mandate of the European Council, in the year 2008 the Executive has been focusing on this area: “Foodstuff prices underwent a remarkable decrease compared to the record levels of some months ago – the document states – however, the causes of the sky-rocketing prices of agricultural raw materials in the short period, that include regulatory restrictions, low competitiveness and speculation, linger on and must be addressed”. Joaquín Almunia, Commissioner for Economic Affairs explained: “between August 2007 and July 2008, inflation in the food sector triggered a 30% rise in overall inflation, mostly affecting low-income families”. The concrete proposals of the Commission include: “promoting competitiveness of foodstuff distribution to increase its recovery from the impact of world foodstuff price surge”; “operating in a firm and consistent manner to ensure fair competitiveness in the EU and at national level through the European Network for Competitiveness”; re-examining potentially restrictive regulations at National and European level. Futhermore, consumers “ought to be able to easily compare prices; to this regard, a permanent Observatory on retail prices will be set up”.
