Mr President, every family, every household in the European Union has at some time or other come into contact with cancer, a terrible disease that you can never get rid of, even though you may recover from it. That the European Union is not only active in the field of cancer prevention and the detection of this terrible disease, but also creates the opportunities to cure cancer through the research programme there are EUR 400 million available for this research programme must be heartening for the European citizen. That is also the reason why Mrs Jöns and I, on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party , and together with all its members, have worked together consummately to ensure that the report of our rapporteur, Mrs Jöns, now before you can really be seamlessly supported by our group. Together we have followed a path that we think is the best for everyone who has to face, will have to face or has had to face the problem. There are great differences in Europe. I am proud of my own country: our screening programme is perfect, but that does not mean that there is nothing now to be done there. There are differences in the sense that the breast cancer problem is greater for women in the Northern European countries, at least it occurs more, and that in other countries – and I am looking at the accession countries here too – it occurs less but the chance of a cure also differs very widely across the European Union. That means that what was started in the 1990s with the breast screening programmes now requires further completion, and that is why we stand together. I shall be making a further remark about this directly. I am asking the Commission for attention to be given to other programmes, other forms of cancer that are also very curable and to which I feel we have really devoted too little attention to date. One example is cervical cancer, which you can detect very early using the HPV test and for which we as the European Union should be exerting rather more pressure on the Member States to be rather more active in this regard too, because if it is detected then in most cases it can be cured. The same goes for prostate cancer. Same problem. Let there be rather more attention given to them too in the new programmes. What we have done is look to see whether the Commission’s guidelines and programmes are adequate, where, in order to arrive at solutions, we can really only advise the Member States. A number of points have, I think, been highlighted. First of all I would mention screening, apart from which, however, it is also of the utmost importance that women, when the existence of breast cancer is suspected, should be taken care of very quickly. I have to say that in my country we make the occasional gaffe in this regard. Prompt detection therefore, but prompt treatment also. That is of the utmost importance and I ask you too, Commissioner, to devote attention to it. Another situation we must avoid is one in which, whenever cancer is detected, any small hospital can then take action. Interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary tackling of the problem leads to the best chances of cure and I think that every woman in the European Union has a right to this.

Political group: PPE-DE