Dr. Vytenis Andriukaitis:

I congratulate Ireland as one of the front-runners in this area and I invite other member states to follow this example. I welcome the good news last night that in the United Kingdom the Secretary of State for Health pronounced officially that the United Kingdom will follow Ireland's example and implement plain packaging. It is excellent.

Let me say a word about alcohol. Alcohol consumption in Ireland, compared with other countries, is relatively high. However, in 2013, the Irish Government approved ambitious measures aimed at improving health, including minimum pricing, regulation of advertising and marketing and health labelling of alcohol products. I share Ireland's commitment to strengthen action to promote good health. If we invest in prevention today, we will save on the money we spend on the consequences of alcohol abuse tomorrow. Today we discussed those issues with the Irish Ministers. They raised sensitive questions about possibilities, and how to act on a European level, especially with regard to different prices in different countries, and excise. Advertising, especially through the Internet, is a significant challenge because we cannot regulate advertising through the Internet at national level. We must seek common actions.

I want to touch upon obesity. Ireland has the third highest prevalence of obesity among adults in the EU. Daily fruit eating among adults is the third lowest in the EU and as for daily vegetable eating, it is the lowest. The slide shows that this is so important. It looks very challenging. Speaking about the younger generation, which lives under considerable pressure on the market side, one can see from the beginning in all the supermarkets how many market instruments are used to encourage consumers to buy sweets, especially if one has small children. If one sees tendencies and behaviour, such as use of the Internet and low physical activity, of course, we have the picture, but our activities on obesity must be long term. We will all be ready to say we will have a long-term strategy around 28 countries. It is not a five-year job. It is a job for ten years or 15 years. In continuity, along the way, we must always be implementing different measures using different instruments in different structures. This is why are we ready to propose health in all political sectors.

We must encourage and reward all stakeholders to speak about such huge challenges. If we do not speak about cancer, mental disease, cardiovascular diseases, about all evidence-based diseases, we must look at this picture and see how it is important to encourage our governments, our national parliaments, our European Parliament and our Commission to be interactive. We must go through different sectors and have a multi-sectoral approach to agree on and implement concrete instruments, and to monitor and have some indicators, some targets. We must go step by step every day looking at the results. For example, in my term of office in five years, I want to see the results of working together accurately, of course, at national levels. We must see those pictures and keep them in our eyes.

The Commission's proposals about introducing a milk scheme and fruit and vegetables in schools are so important. Today we see different tendencies and interpretations but all operating on evidence-based arguments. Of course, we must promote milk schemes and encourage our member states to support open access to fruit and vegetables, especially for our younger generation, because we have the possibility to act and to be effective. I would like to say that together with my colleague, Commissioner Phil Hogan - we are currently on the same floor - I am thinking about possibilities to introduce agricultural food safety plans, not only food safety but also food health, because safe food is not the same as healthy food.

We must discuss possibilities to raise those questions, and of course it is all so sensitive - nutrition profiles, labelling, cultural traditions, salt, sugar - but we must continue in our dialogues, trialogues, multi-dialogues and polylogues, going in the same vein to solve those issues. I see considerable benefits of such possibilities to improve access to the milk scheme, to vegetables, but I would like to see more member states taking part in these actions together. The numbers I see on these slides are the facts - nobody can dispute them. We work towards change. Five years will pass by very quickly.

Health must be considered in all policies as well as disease prevention. I would like to see Commissioners Hogan, Hahn, Bienkowska and Timmermans, Commissioners responsible for health. We all have our competencies in different areas. It it not just for health ministers or health specialists. It is for all parts of government and for all policy-makers. Let us consider article 168 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It says, "a high level of human health protection shall be ensured in the definition and implementation of all Union policies and activities". It is my job. I must act in this way. Therefore my approach can be simply summarised as health in all policies. Let me repeat the mantra - the more health systems focus on health promotion and disease prevention now, the less they will spend on treatment in years to come. Such a basic mantra needs to be applied in everyday activities and in result-oriented steps. Fostering healthier lifestyles, screening for cancer, providing vaccination are just a few examples of actions contributing to prevention of diseases which would cost several thousand times more to treat than to detect. Co-operation with the health system is a huge area.

I used to serve my country as a Minister of health. Drawing from my experience to date, I see scope for closer co-operation among member states in the field of health. I would like to mention Article 4 of the Treaty on European Union, which states, "Pursuant to the principle of sincere co-operation, the Union and the Member States shall, in full mutual respect, assist each other in carrying out tasks which flow from the Treaties". I hear at Council level, please do not touch questions about so-called harmonisation of health systems. Of course, it is a misperception, a misunderstanding. Do not speak about harmonisation. However, we look at criticism and assist each other in carrying out tasks which flow from the treaties in full mutual respect, in co-operation. There is a lot that member states can learn from each other by co-operating more closely.

Among other things, President Junker asked me to look at developing expertise on the assessment of the performance of health systems. A new expert group on health system performance assessment, chaired jointly by Sweden and the Commission, started work in November. We are confident that the group can and will develop effective tools and methods, having agreed on some indicators, to assess and ultimately improve the performance of our health systems. Many member states are taking part in this group and I have just discussed with the Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar the possibility for Ireland to join this group. We agreed on the situation.

The European Commission and President Junker are determined to see new legislation deliver real results to citizens. For me, health is a way to bring the EU closer to its citizens. We will seek to ensure the directive on patients' rights in cross-border health care truly results in better citizens' access to quality healthcare through our European Union. The directive introduces several areas of co-operation among member states, for instance the creation of European reference networks of highly-specialised health care providers from different EU countries to share knowledge and pool expertise. I want these networks to become fully operational by 2016. I also want to promote and expand co-operation among member states on e-health and health technology assessment. The latter could help member states avoid duplication in their assessments and enable an effective exchange of information among national authorities. Moreover, member states and MEPs seem to be getting more interested in exchanging information on medicine pricing policies and the impact they have on patient access to medicine.

I would like to touch on the question of the Ebola virus. In addition to health systems, emergency preparation is another crucial area to which I will dedicate my energy and attention. Communicable diseases and other health threats know no borders. Therefore, European co-operation is vital. Recurrent Ebola virus epidemics in west Africa show the importance of EU collaboration to prevent and respond to such epidemics. Ireland is making an important contribution for which I am thankful, in terms of its collaboration with other member states and international organisations and its financial support, but its most telling contribution is the work of brave volunteers from Ireland on the ground.

I was in those countries two months ago and saw the real situation on the ground in Sierra Leone and Liberia. I met those volunteers.

Today the situation is manageable. Our effort produced results and we can now start speaking about control. In March, a high-level conference will be devoted to Ebola to discuss the long-term strategies in the affected countries. Over a year ago, a new European Union law on serious cross-border threats to health came into force. This law requires member states to share information on serious cross-border threats to health and on the measures they take to prepare for and respond to health threats. This law is in place thanks largely to the Irish Presidency and its extensive efforts to find a political compromise.

My priorities for health can be summed up in three simple words: promotion, prevention and protection. Thanks to my young followers on Twitter I would also like to add an additional "P", participation in the other three "P"s. This participation must involve all stakeholders, and my job is to encourage, communicate, discuss and see possibilities for participating in democracy. We all need to play our part in full, be it in Brussels or in the European capitals, regions, towns or villages. I will therefore be open to dialogue and I invite the committee to communicate with me. My work is driven by the values ofequity and solidarity. I truly believe in health for all. I thank the committee for its attention.