Human blood and blood components: quality and safety for the collection, testing, processing, storage and distribution

The Commission considers the Common Position a good compromise, which takes on board most of the key amendments of the European Parliament, and is also in line with the Amended Proposal on all essential questions. However, the Commission regrets that the Council decided not to accept a number of amendments which aim to strengthen the protection of donors and patients and which aim to clarify administrative provisions of the Directive. The Commission maintains that these provisions would strengthen and complement the Directive, and are justified under the framework of Article 152 of the EC Treaty. However, as most of these standards are already fixed in national legislation in Member States, or can be established afterwards by the Commission using the"comitology" regulatory procedure, on balance the Commission is able to accept the approach put forward in the Common Position. The Commission made three statements for the minutes, which are annexed to this Communication. In its first statement, it confirms its intention to analyse actions taken to encourage voluntary and unpaid donations with a view to spreading best practices. The second statement refers to the views of the Commission regarding two possibilities for implementing a traceability system. The third statement indicates that the Commission will review a labelling requirement listed in Annex III.�