In its assessment of the Council's common position on the Decision creating a network for
epidemiological surveillance, the Commission indicated that it could not support the Council's text.
In particular, the Commission criticized the Council for not having respected the main aim of its
proposal, the setting-up of a network to respond effectively and in a coordinated manner to
epidemics or the outbreak of communicable diseases in a Community without internal frontiers.
The Commission was especially unhappy with the following points:
- financial responsibility: the use of funds from existing programmes might seriously jeopardise their
implementation;
- response system for prevention and control: the tasks set by the Council were vague and
contradictory. Moreover, the Council included measures in this field that should come under
intergovernmental cooperation (contrary to the commitology procedure provided for);
- protection against communicable diseases: the Council did not include the adoption of Community
measures in this field, although it was empowered to do so by Article 129 of the Treaty;
- evaluation and reports: the drafting of reports every two years was considered unrealistic and
unnecessarily costly;
- annex: in the Commission's view, this list could not be merely 'indicative': for the selection of
diseases covered, it could be indicative, but for the communication of cases or emergencies to
Member States, the list should be compulsory.
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