From 6 to 9 June a new European Parliament will be elected which will have a huge stake in all European policies and legislation for the next 5 years. Current projections are pointing at a more right wing oriented Parliament in comparison to the current one which may lead to a possible shift in priorities.
Shortly after the elections the traditional game of musical chairs will begin for the appointment of 27 European Commissioners, most importantly the President. Current projections expect the current European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to renew her term for another 5 years, despite some recent wobbles over her response to the Middle East crisis and allegations over favouritism. While Member states are expected to back von der Leyen as candidate for the presidency, the support from the European Parliament may be more fragile.[i]
At ESE we hope that, no matter what the outcome of these events, both institutions will place health and environment high on the political agenda and complete the implementation of the European Green Deal and more specifically the revision of REACH which is pivotal in effectively banning Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) from our environment. The publication of the revision was unfortunately met with fierce political resistance during the current legislative term leading to further delay of this key policy measure.
In addition to pushing for effective measures to ban EDCs from our environment, other endocrine topics should be brought to the attention of both institutions as well, including obesity, rare diseases, cancer and endocrine research. The latter will be promoted on the basis of the ongoing EndoCompass project which will be instrumental in setting priorities and explaining the importance of endocrine research for our health and environment.
Whether our coordinated push for more attention for endocrine topics will be successful is hard to predict. We must hope that both institutions will see their next term as a fresh start and break with current tendencies at the EU level to cancel or delay policy measures in the area of health and environment.
What we can do as a community is double our efforts to make our voice heard and find political supporters at the EU as well as the national level to help us in addressing the many challenges in our field. Especially during the current turbulent times, it is important that we prevent our health and environment priorities from being overshadowed entirely by geo-political developments.
[i] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/16/ursula-von-der-leyen-eu-envoy-pick-quits-markus-pieper
29/05/2024