On 7 July, the European Court of Auditors published a report on “The European Union's public health programme (2003-2007): an effective way to improve European citizens' health?” The Court has analysed the European Union’s Public Health Programme (PHP) for 2003-2007. This programme indented to complement the measures taken by Member States to protect public health and is based on three objectives: health information, rapid reaction to health threats and health promotion.
The EU has funded, during 2003-2007, the Public Health Programme projects to the total amount of €232 million.
The European Court of Auditors has called into question the “utility” of certain parts of the EU’s public health programmes and stressed that the right conditions for the projects funded by the EU budget were not in place to effectively contribute to protect and improve public health of the European citizens, as a complement to the Member State’s measures. According to the Court such programmes do not have a “demonstrable impact on citizens’ health.”
The Court recalled that the Commission competence in the area of public health is very limited. The Community actions are to complement the Member State’s measures whilst respecting the member states’ responsibilities for the organisation and delivery of health services and medical care. Consequently, according to the Court, the “EU added value” mainly lies in enabling cooperation between stakeholders from different Member States and exchanging “good practice.” The Court has stressed that “Networks were the clearest providers of European added value.” Nevertheless, according to the Court “the main implementation mechanism of the PHP (i.e. grants for actions awarded through calls for proposals) is not the most appropriate mechanism for funding such networks.”
The court’s report stated that the EU’s public health programme was very broad and included “ambitious objectives that contrasted sharply with the limited means at its disposal.” The Court deemed that the PHP design did not provide an appropriate framework for an effective implementation of the Community funded health promotion projects.
The Court slammed the Commission over its “strategic planning” and “lack of priority setting.” The Court stressed that the programme “lacked strategic focus”, and its ‘action areas’ set in the annual work plans were more numerous than the projects financed to address them. Moreover, according to the Court, “Since project proposers were invited to apply for funding under often very general headings, the multiplicity and diversity of project topics and target groups caused input to be diluted and led to fragmented results.”
Furthermore, the Court stressed that the “project effectiveness was hindered by design weaknesses and implementation problems.” In fact, according to the Court, “With a few exceptions, projects did not define what results they intended to achieve and therefore were unable to demonstrate that they had any effect.”
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