In March 2010, the Council of the European Union, called on the European Commission and the Member States to launch a reflection process on the subject of chronic diseases.
A reflection process is a process used by the Council to identify options to the response to a given challenge through internal deliberations and dialogue with relevant stakeholders.
The Council has now published an interim report on the reflection process on chronic diseases, which identifies the main priorities of the Council and propose concrete action at EU level.
The Interim Report identifies the focus of the reflection process as addressing the common challenges related to chronic diseases rather than to address specific disease separately. The report highlights that this initiative will interact with other EU initiatives on cancer, mental health, alcohol and nutrition.
Chronic disease prevention, health promotion, and chronic disease management with an emphasis on patient empowerment, are the two overarching priority areas for the chronic disease reflection process and the report propose actions at EU level on each topic.
The report also calls for an ambitious strategy that has a clear focus on technological innovation and the use of new technologies.
This report was kept confidential until its publication on 08 January 2013 and will likely feed into the Council Conclusions on Chronic Diseases which are due at the end of 2013.
