Cross-border healthcare: Directive under discussion again
According to a Commission estimate made in 2008, around 780,000 patients are expected to travel to another EU country for treatment.
Last week, the European Union's health ministers have discussed a draft law that has been instigated by Spain which aims at making it easier for patients to get treatment wherever they are in the EU.
Only a few months ago, Spain was among a group of countries that included Greece, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Romania opposing the directive, and the European Commission was considering withdrawing it altogether. But Spain has now engineered a compromise text.
The cross-border healthcare proposal aimed to clarify patients' rights to treatment in other EU countries and it could help avoid costly legal cases.
The Commission published its proposal in mid-2008, which has been under attack since then as it was argued that the proposal would undermine national control over healthcare and create inequalities between travelling and non-travelling patients.
Spain was against the proposed directive as they feared that they would be burdened with the costs of healthcare from many northern Europeans living in retirement on the Spanish coasts. The text to be approved by health ministers next week contains a compromise about which country bears the healthcare costs of pensioners living in another member state. Whereas usually the country of residence would pay, under the compromise if a German pensioner living in Spain returned to Germany for healthcare, Germany would be responsible for paying the final bill.
But this situation is complicated further by an agreement between nine EU countries – Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Sweden – to give their pensioners more rights to healthcare from their home country under a 2004 regulation on social security.
The new Spanish proposal may make the law more confusing for patients and does not give them enough clarity, but at this point the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament will now be able to begin negotiations on a final version of the law in the autumn.
If this proposal is accepted by the EU health ministers next week, then it will initiate a second reading at the EU Parliament in autumn.