Health ministers to consider action against bio-terrorism

European Union health ministers will discuss joint action against the threat of bio-terrorism when they meet in Brussels this evening. The Health Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, will lead the discussion with the ministers, who are attending a conference on mental health, on the level of preparedness for a bio-terrorist attack in the EU.

EU leaders meeting in Ghent last week asked the Commission to co-ordinate action against the threat posed by biological attacks. Mr Byrne said much needed to be done to co-ordinate the measures in place in the EU's 15 member-states and to address such issues as the availability of vaccines.

Mr Byrne suggested this week that the EU should consider setting up an agency to deal with communicable diseases similar to the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) based in Atlanta.

"An EU-wide mechanism or agency would be a small but significant step in the right direction. It strikes me as the minimum necessary for a rapid and flexible Community-wide response to threats such as bio-terrorism or communicable diseases generally," Mr Byrne said.

The Commission President, Mr Romano Prodi, told the European Parliament yesterday that last month's attacks in the US highlighted the need for the EU to co-ordinate foreign policy more closely. Mr Prodi said Europe's response to the present crisis was more coherent than its reaction to the Gulf War a decade ago. But he argued that, for Europe to play an enhanced role on the world stage, it must speak with one voice.

"A common policy ensures that the different national policies are co-ordinated within a Community framework, according to the Community method, and serve the interests of the Union as a whole. In the field of foreign and security policy we have not yet reached that point. But that must be our objective. We must lose no time in constructing a foreign and security policy that builds on our experience of Community action," he said.

Mr Prodi said the EU should play a bigger role in the Middle East, deepen relations with Russia and Ukraine and tackle the inequality that feeds resentment against the West.

"The European Union project is still the only concrete, practical and democratic response to galloping globalisation. We therefore have to tackle energetically, boldly and imaginatively the global issues that breed resentment and discontent: poverty, growing gaps in income, intolerable economic and social imbalances," he said.