PURPOSE : to establish the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
LEGISLATIVE ACT : Regulation 851/2004/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a European Centre for disease prevention and control.
CONTENT : this Decision creates a European Centre, able to provide a structured and systematic approach to the control of communicable diseases and other serious health threats, which affect EU citizens. The Centre is an independent agency, which will serve as a Community source of independent scientific advice, assistance and expertise from trained medical, scientific and epidemiological staff.
The mission of the Centre is to identify, assess and communicate current and emergent threats to human health from communicable diseases. In the case of other outbreaks of illness of unknown origin, the Centre will act on its own initiative until the source of the outbreak is known.
In the case of an outbreak which is clearly not caused by a communicable disease, the Centre will act only in cooperation with the competent authority upon request from that authority. In pursuing its mission, the Centre will take full account of the responsibilities of Member State, the Commission and other Community agencies, and of the responsibilities of international organisations active within the filed of public health, in order to ensure comprehensiveness, coherence and complementarity of action.
For their part, the Member States must:
- provide the Centre with relevant scientific and technical data;
- communicate to the Centre any massages forwarded to the Community network via the early warning and response system;
- identify competent bodies and public health experts who could be made available to assist in Community responses to health threats.
Within the field of its mission, the Centre has the following tasks:
- collect, evaluate and disseminate scientific and technical data;
- provide scientific opinions and technical assistance, including training; the Centre must issue a scientific opinion at the request of the Commission, the European Parliament or a Member State on matters falling within its mission;
- provide timely information to the Commission, Member States, Community agencies and international organisations;
- coordinate the European networking of bodies operating in the fields within the Centre's mission, including networks arising from public health activities operating the dedicated surveillance networks; and
- facilitate the development and implementation of joint actions.
With regard to the organisation of the Centre, the latter will comprise a management board, a director (with a term of five years, which may be extended once) and his staff, and an advisory forum. The Management Board will be composed of one member designated by each Member State, two Members designated by the European Parliament, and three members representing and appointed by the Commission. The Advisory Forum will be composed of members from technically competent bodies in the Member States which undertake tasks similar to those of the Centre. It willconstitute a mechanism for an exchange of information and the pooling of knowledge.
Turning to the Centre's revenue, this will comprise a subsidy from the Community and payments received for services rendered as well as any financial contributions from the competent bodies, and voluntary contributions from the Member States. There are provisions relating to the discharge of the budget as well as provisions on combating fraud.
Finally, by 20 May 2007, the Centre must commission an independent evaluation of its achievements on the basis of terms of reference issued by the Management Board in agreement with the Commission.
ENTRY INTO FORCE : 20/05/04. The Centre will be operational from 20/05/05.