On health and the family

Meeting in Strasbourg for its plenary session (18-21 June), the European Parliament has a packed agenda, comprising aspects of real significance for the life of citizens. It is also debating issues of internal policy, such as the summit of 21-22 June in Brussels dedicated to the future of the Constitutional Treaty; and questions of international policy, especially the situation in the Palestinian Territories and in the Gaza Strip and respect for human rights in Russia. Its “social” agenda includes measures to curb the spread of multiple sclerosis, the prevention and curbing of youth violence, and support for young mothers. TREATMENT AND RESEARCH TO COMBAT SCLEROSIS . “What concrete measures have been adopted to follow up the Resolution of the European Parliament of 2003 on multiple sclerosis?”: the session opened on Monday with an oral question with which MEPs asked the Commission how it intends to proceed to tackle an illness that affects 400,000 people in the 27 member states and that tends to spread with greater frequency among youth and among women. Four years ago the EP had approved a Resolution “on the effects of discrimination in healthcare against persons affected with multiple sclerosis”; it called for greater investments in research, a “code of the best practices” to be submitted to national health systems, and “closer scientific cooperation” that would transcend the frontiers of the individual countries, “to accelerate the development of more effective treatments”. Little, or at any rate not enough, seems to have been done since then. The debate in the EP called for an epidemiological study, funded by the EP and conducted in liaison with the World Health Organization, to collect relevant data “which could help researchers to clarify the causes of multiple sclerosis that still remain unknown”. WOMEN, EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES AND THE FAMILY. Female education and training “are a human right and an essential prerequisite to be able to enjoy to the full all the other social, economic, cultural and political rights”: Greek MEP MARIA PANAYOTOPOULOU-CASSIOTOU started out from this conviction in presenting her report to the EP on Tuesday, aimed at “facilitating the reconciliation of family life and studies for young European women”. She has conducted long preparatory research on the question. In line with the recent Green Paper of the Commission, she recalled that “the European demographic deficit is also due to the fact that at the present time the various phases of life”, such as study, work, and forming a family, “take place at a later age than in the past”. She insisted that concrete measures are needed “at the national and European level to help to reconcile private and family life with public and professional life”. A real “strategy for the family” is needed: something about which discussion has been going on for some time in the EU institutions. Yet the data that are being periodically registered show a different reality: for example, “in the sectors of education and research graduate women exceed men”, forming 59% of the total, “yet their presence is considerably reduced with the advance of career: 43% of researchers studying for a doctorate are women in contrast to only 15% of tenured professors”. TASK OF FATHERS AND GRANDPARENTS. Panayotopoulou-Cassiotou also devoted close attention to the problems of young mothers and couples that have to look after a sick or disabled person. She declared that, in collaboration with local authorities and institutes of higher and professional education, “member states ought to adopt the necessary measures to ensure that student-parents may benefit from housing suitable for their needs, fully exploiting the opportunities offered in this sector by EU funds and in particular the European Social Fund”. She continued: “States ought to guarantee that all students who have children have access, at a sustainable price, to public nursery schools and kindergartens of high quality”. Also with the aim of fostering the education of young mothers at school and at university, the Greek MEP indicated such solutions as subsidized loans, tax breaks, flexible organization of studies, part-time labour contracts, and the provision of ad hoc scholarships. She also insisted on the objective of “fostering family life” and “promoting the role of fathers and a better sharing of parental responsibilities” at home, “as essential components of equal opportunities between men and women”. Last but not least, the Greek deputy introduced a reflection “on the importance of grandparents and their fundamental role in bringing up children and in assisting young parents who study and work”.