During the Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU, a number of dossiers on the health area will dominate the work of the Council:

• Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR);
• Action Programme in the Field of Health;
• Amendment of the Directive on Tobacco;
• Amendment of the Transparency Directive; and
• The Health Threats Package.

To better protect Europeans from a wide range of health threats, and provide for a fully co-ordinated response in the event of a crisis, the European Commission has adopted a legislative proposal on the means to address serious cross border health threats. Building on lessons learned with recent crises such as the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, the volcanic ash cloud in 2010 and the outbreak of E. coli in 2011, the Commission is proposing to beef up the means to prepare for and to address such crises.

The main measures proposed include:

The European Commission recently released its revised proposal on ‘Information to Patients’ which looks at different ways of providing information on prescribed medicines and the role of the pharmaceutical industry in providing such information on their products directly to people. The public health community cautiously welcomes this controversial and long awaited proposal.

On September 15 in Baku, Azerbaijan, at the WHO Regional Committee for Europe, 53 countries discussed adopting a new European strategic action plan on antibiotic resistance. Developed by the WHO Regional Office for Europe following extensive consultation with experts and policy-makers and based on the latest research, the action plan builds on the momentum created by World Health Day 2011, with its slogan of “No action today, no cure tomorrow”.

Eurocancercoms is pleased to annouce the launch of ecancerHub - a new, open-access, integrated approach to providing the whole cancer community – patients, doctors, researchers and policymakers - with high quality and trustworthy information.

The EIPA (European Institute of Public Administration) is organising a seminar in Maastricht on 13-14 September on the use of EU structural funds.

The European Commission calls on EU Member States to develop and pursue a common vision on how to coordinate research at EU level in the field of ageing. This was the message of a Recommendation just adopted by the Commission entitled "More years, better lives - the potential and challenges of demographic change".