Public health: Programme of Community action 1999-2003 on pollution-related diseases

Commissioner Flynn said that he could accept only five of the 16 amendments tabled: Amendment No 7 in full and Amendments Nos 3, 8, 9 and 10 in part. The following amendments therefore had to be rejected: No 5 for budgetary reasons (Mr Flynn recalled that the current financial perspectives did not allow for the sum requested by Parliament), Nos 4, 11, 12 and 13 which exceeded the scope of the proposed action, Nos 1 and 2 referring to the Treaty of Amsterdam which was not as yet ratified and Nos 6, 14, 15 and 16 because the last three would reduce the duration of the programme to the three years needed for the preparatory work alone. Mr Flynn said that the Commission wanted to pay more attention to respiratory disease and allergies which had significantly increased over the last few years. In this respect, he proposed that the Commission should undertake to make widely available the experience acquired by some Member States in this area and to support the work of self-help groups for asthma and allergy sufferers.