On 1st of January 2009, the Czech Republic took over the rotating EU presidency for six months.

The Czech Republic is said to be Euro sceptic and observers seem to think that the health agenda will not be push forward under that presidency, as it was the case under its immediate predecessor, the French presidency.

The Czech Republic motto is “Europe without with barriers” and will focus on the competitiveness of Europe. In the field of health, the presidency has three priorities:

• antibiotic resistance

The World Health Organisation and the e European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control recommended to the EU Member States to implement national programmes to control and prevent antimicrobial resistance, which is caused by excessive use of antibiotics and solved by measures preventing the spread of multi-resistant microbes.

Drawing on EU-funded health care projects, the Czech Republic will concentrate in particular on the draft standards for hospital antibiotic programmes aiming to reduce the danger of antibiotic resistance and nosocomial infections in order to enhance patients’ safety and health care quality. Another goal is to recommend suitable models of support and funding of national antibiotic programmes by national governments and healthcare payers, especially health insurance companies.

A conference on the matter of microbial threat to patient safety is planned to take place in April 2009 (exact date and location to be précised)

• financial sustainability of health systems

Together with the French and the Swedish Presidencies, the Czech Republic will concentrate on the financial impact of demographic changes and on the need for innovation, aiming to maintain a high quality of health service provision and to ensure access to these services. It will try to find more effective instruments to ensure the financial sustainability of the health systems. The goal of this priority is to promote the sharing of experience and exchange of information and to enhance communication among the Member States, which influence each other more and more in this area as a result of the free movement of persons, goods and services, while retaining their sovereignty. A conference on the subject is planned for May 2009 (exact date and location to be announced).

• electronic integration of health services and the interoperability of information systems in the health sector (e-Health).

EAHP will closely monitor the progress made by the Czech Republic presidency in the above mentioned fields and will suggest actions or reflections when and where needed.