The Commission set up a new website in youth friendly design targeted for the young people. The aim of the website is to empower young people to have a real say about their health by offering them a space to air their views. This website will be used as a main source of information about the Youth Health Initiative.
The initiative emphasises dialogue and involvement of young people in tackling the health issues that affect them and invites young people to be active partners in our work on health.

 

The Commission launched the new Youth Health Initiative website, which will be accessible in 22 language versions. We disseminate this information within our network in order to involve a variety of young people across Europe.

Website ‘Be Healthy – Be Yourself’   http://ec.europa.eu/health-eu/youth/index_en.htm  

The website is accessible from the EU Health Portal. It has three major parts: a conference page, a Youth Health competition page and a blog page which will be moderated by the European Youth Forum.

 

The youth health conference website gathers information about the conference which will take place in Brussels on 9 and 10 July 2009.

A main feature of the conference will be close involvement of young people and their organizations in the preparation of the event. The website will be regularly updated in order to gather the latest information including the conference program, the main conference themes, related documents on youth health, and information about the main partners and their activities contributing to the initiative.

 

 

This review analyses in detail how the commission and parliament may appear at the end of the year. For the commission, the allocation of portfolios, appointment of commissioners and the reallocation of DG competences are all currently being speculated upon. In the Parliament section we map out how the Parliamentary committees and groups may look after the elections.

DG SANCO: Call 2009 - New funding opportunities in health.
The European Commission has published the Work Plan for 2009 for the implementation of second programme of Community action in the field of health.
The publication of the Work Plan was followed by the calls for proposals. The Executive Agency for Health and Consumers (http://ec.europa.eu/eahc/index.html)

Published calls for proposals for projects, operating grants, conferences and joint actions.
The financial contributions may, where appropriate, include joint financing by the Community and one or more Member states or by the Community and the competent authorities of other participating countries.
The Calls present new funding opportunities for the European organisations active in the area of public health. The total budget available for the execution of the 2009 Work Plan is 48.2 million euro.
All proposals should address important problems in the European public health and be in line with the Commission’s priorities expressed in the Work Plan.
The successful proposals should concentrate on aspects of public health that cannot be achieved on a national level. They should ensure a significant impact across the EU. The deadline for submission of proposals is 20 May 2009.

For all details, please visit the website: Source: DG Sanco, February 2009
http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_programme/howtoapply/call_for_propal_en.htm

Re: The role of article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in protecting public policy from tobacco industry influence
On July 15, the Smokefree Partnership organised a seminar in the European Parliament (Brussels) on the role of article 5.3 of the WHO FCTC in protecting public policy from tobacco industry influence.
The overall aim of the meeting was to inform policy makers, in particular EU Member States and Members of the European Parliament of recent tobacco industry interference across the world and to explore the reasons why normal rules of engagement should not apply to the tobacco industry.
We are pleased to announce that the report of this event (including the verbatim speech of Commissioner Vassiliou) is available on the Smoke Free Partnership website www.smokefreepartnership.eu

Should you not be able to access the PDF file, or to send your feedback, please kindly contact F.Berteletti:  florence.berteletti@ersnet.org

Disturbing pictures of rotting lungs, a corpse in a morgue and a baby in intensive care are to appear on cigarette packets from Wednesday, 1 October 2008. Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) director Deborah Arnott said: "The stark images in the picture warnings on tobacco products are a call to action to smokers to quit, and the evidence is that they work. The evidence also shows that picture warnings work better on plain packs, so we are urging the Government to also implement legislation to require the removal of pack branding to maximise the impact of the these images."

The American Cancer Society announced the opening of the call for nominations of the Luther L. Terry Awards for Exemplary Leadership in Tobacco Control on 14 April 2008. Named for the late United States Surgeon General Luther L. Terry, M.D., whose groundbreaking work established the foundation for public health scrutiny of the dangers of tobacco use, the awards honour outstanding leadership and accomplishment, are synonymous with excellence, and signify that the recipients are among the very best in the world at what they do. The awards will be presented at the 14th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health, in Mumbai, India on 11 March 2009.

Presented triennially, the Luther L. Terry Awards recognise outstanding worldwide achievement in the field of tobacco control. The 2009 awards will debut a new category, Outstanding Community Service, in addition to the five categories from the 2006 awards: Outstanding Individual Leadership, Outstanding Organisation, Outstanding Research Contribution, Exemplary Leadership by a Government Ministry, and Distinguished Career.

To nominate a candidate, please download an application from the official Luther L. Terry Awards website and submit it via email to lutherterry@cancer.org.

This report was compiled by Luk Joosens (Tobacco Control Manager, Belgian Foundation against Cancer and Advocacy Officer, Association of the European Cancer Leagues) and Martin Raw (Special Lecturer in Public Health Science, University of Nottingham, England) and was presented at the 4th European Conference Tobacco or Health 2007, Basel, Switzerland, 11-13 October 2007.

On 30 November 2006, the European Parliament voted on the 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7) which specifies European research areas and objectives from 2007 to 2013 with a budget of more than € 54 billion. The vote took place in line with the Council’s position, so the Programme will come into force 1st January 2007. The International Primary Care Respiratory Group (IPCRG) and the European Federation of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients Associations (EFA) are therefore very pleased that "respiratory diseases including those induced by allergies" are now part of the priority list as they had asked for, and that food allergies are covered in the food safety theme of the Programme.

Decree 2006-1386, dated 15 November 2006, outlines the technical aspects of the smoking ban in France: as of 1 February 2007 workplaces became smoke-free; on 1 January 2008 cafés, restaurants, bars, discos, nightclubs, casinos and hotels likewise became smoke-free.

INWAT Europe held an expert seminar on second-hand smoke and women from 30-21 March 2005. The purpose of this seminar was to bring together experts on women’s smoking, inequalities and gender to examine the issues of smoke-free policy changes from a European perspective, as the adverse health effects of second-hand smoke on women are a key issue for women’s health. The seminar concluded with a meeting comprising INWAT Europe Advisory Board members, which drew up recommendations for The Way Forward for future policy development, health promotion and research at European level. The recommendations aim to advance the issue of women and second-hand smoke by effectively developing research, programming and policy.