HEALTH CARE : THREE MINISTERS SUPPORT A MORATORIUM ON LEGAL PROCEEDINGS.

The social affairs ministers of Belgium, Luxembourg and France reiterated, on 26 January, at a conference in Brussels on health care, their conviction that legislation is needed. Given the risk of seeing attacks on national health care systems under internal market and competition rules - several complaints are being reviewed on limits on PET scans in Belgium, and on the establishment of pharmacies in Spain, Austria, Hungary, etc - the three ministers have called on the European Commission to establish a "moratorium on legal proceedings," until the results of the Commission's future communication are known. "That would be an elegant solution," commented Belgian Social Affairs and Public Health Minister Rudy Demotte.

In his opening remarks as a guest speaker at the conference, Klaus Theo...