07 May 2010

Relations of the Union and the member states – Science, culture (supplement)

In this short post, I will mention only several competencies of the European federation which I have omitted in the penultimate post about education and science and could to do so because they go with the sphere of science.

The first of these omitted competencies concerns interventions in genetic information of living creatures and especially human. This topic is usually not in state constitutions, above all in them that change not often. But the scientific progress requires law arrangement of this topic; the example of German or Swiss constitution shows that to put this power to the hands of the federation, not to those of the member states themselves is the most convenient. Especially the changes in the human genetic code are very weighty and it can be only heavily imagined that this matter can be left to the individual member states and consequences of it can be restricted into the borders of only some member state – mutual interconnection of states in a federation will make none other solution than in the federal level possible. All the more so that already today, matters of genetically modified agricultural products have been treated together.

The second competence that I have omitted in the post about federation's power in the sphere of education and science is the power over medicines. It is a topic that seems to belong rather in the sphere of health system. But I am not aiming at interference of the federation in health systems of the member states and at their subordination to control of the federation; I have in mind only medicines' development, distribution and control of their circulation in the territory of the federation – and it is really a topic rather of science or close to it than of a health care system of any state. For one thing puzzles me: the same medicine can be approved to be used in a European state but at the same time, it is not allowed to be used in another state (though e. g. neighbouring one) because it has not been approved there yet. This is incomprehensible because inhabitants of individual European states have not so different body constitution that to approve newly the same medicine is necessary. One thing more joins it: I do not know what a great role testing medicines in laboratory animals plays but if restriction multiple national medicine approving will reduce the number of (ab)used animals, it will be only another reason in favour of pan-European solution. A progress has been made in this field in the present intergovernmental EU but only in some kinds of medicines (against cancer, diabetes and AIDS) and it is not enough.

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