Madam President, Commissioner, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Jensen, not just on the work she has done, but on her ability and her efforts to reach consensus between all the members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. The European Commission had officially launched the idea of creating a European health card at the beginning of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union, which ran from January to June 2002, at the informal meeting of Employment and Social Policy Ministers, held in Burgos on 18 and 19 January 2002. That proposal was supported by the then Spanish Minister for Employment and Social Affairs, President-in-Office of the Council of Employment and Social Policy Ministers, Mr Juan Carlos Aparicio Pérez, who is incidentally now the Mayor of that beautiful Castilian city. Then, the Barcelona Council of March 2002 decided to create a European Health Insurance Card, a card which will replace the current paper forms which European citizens require in order to receive healthcare assistance in other Member States. When Community citizens move between Member States there may be, and in fact there are, inconveniences and restrictions of their intra-Community freedom of movement. The possibility – an immediate one, having heard the Commissioner – of a European health card must contribute to the elimination and removal of these difficulties and furthermore is going to make it easier for Community Europeans to exercise their rights. The situation was very different initially, since we were working on the basis of differing situations in each of the Member States. Nevertheless, the advantages of this European health card are obvious. For my country, which receives more than 40 million European citizens per year and in which furthermore many Community citizens take up residence, it is very important. The inhabitants of highly regionalised countries will also have special advantages. The card for all Community Europeans is going to simplify the procedures currently necessary in order to receive assistance in the country of temporary stay, also guaranteeing that the bodies funding that assistance are reimbursed for their expenses by the country of origin of the beneficiary-user. I therefore believe that the advantages, amongst others, are the correct application of Community coordination in the field of health care; creating confidence amongst the European citizens with regard to their healthcare when they move within Community territory; to facilitate the citizens’ exercise of their right to healthcare assistance by means of simplifying the documentation required, concentrating it in a simple card, in a single card to ensure healthcare assistance, with the integrated use of cards and terminals; and finally, the provision of the replacement procedure in exceptional cases, by which I mean the loss or theft of the card. With this card, which in principle is going to replace the current E111 form, used for short stays, as the Commissioner said, we will have another piece of Europe in our pockets to add to the euro. Quite simply, to return to the Spanish Presidency and its slogan, this card will provide us with ‘more Europe’. In any event, I believe that ‘more Europe’ means a closer Europe, closer to the European citizens, which the citizens will have a better image of, and, undoubtedly – and I will end here, Madam President – a further step in European construction as our precursors would have said.

Political group: PPE-DE