On 12 and 13 November intensive discussions took place in Brussels between some 35 ECHAMP members from 14 European countries and the three main EU institutions - the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of Ministers.  Over the two days the ECHAMP members visited over 25 individual MEPs from their home countries in their offices in the European Parliament and five health attachés, representing the Member States’ Permanent Representations in Brussels.

In each of these meetings, ECHAMP representatives stressed one key message: the difficult and uncertain regulatory situation for homeopathic and anthroposophic medicinal products in the EU as well as at the various national levels. They emphasised that the implementation of EU legislation at national regulatory level, such as the concrete assessment of applications, has led to a situation that is even less harmonised than before.

Most of the MEPs were already fully aware of this difficult, sometimes even critical situation and showed strong support for ECHAMP’s initiative, willing to act within the scope of their position as MEPs. The health attachés were also interested to hear more about the situation, as well as about ECHAMP’s specific proposals to rectify it.

The ECHAMP delegations presented the MEPs and health attachés with two new ECHAMP publications, ‘Homeopathy and Anthroposophic Medicine – Their Place in European Healthcare’ and ‘Homeopathic and Anthroposophic Medicinal Products in Europe – The Need for Better Regulation’.

On the second day, ECHAMP welcomed the European Commission official responsible for homeopathic and anthroposophic medicinal products, Mr Thomas Per Thomassen, from DG Enterprise – Pharmaceuticals, to a working lunch. Providing information on the numbers of registered, mutually recognised, authorised and notified homeopathic and anthroposophic medicines from a large number of Member States, ECHAMP underlined the slow progress of the specific regulatory work, the difficult situation in which our industry finds itself and the negative consequences for patients as well as prescribers. In his presentation Mr Thomassen discussed the major issues on the Commission’s current agenda, which will be addressed in a Communication on the so-called ‘Pharma Package’ due out in the coming weeks.

Mr Thomassen’s presentation made it clear that homeopathic and anthroposophic medicinal products do not have a place on the current and short-term Commission agenda and that this is unlikely to change. However, he did promise to pay close attention to the issues outlined in ECHAMP’s document, ‘Homeopathic and Anthroposophic Medicinal Products – Proposals for Better Regulation’ and asked ECHAMP to come forward with a short document listing the most urgent issues which he could then put on the agenda of the competent authorities (Homeopathic Medicinal Products Working Group) at their next meeting in Paris in December. Lastly, he offered to discuss solutions for transitional measures for existing homeopathic and anthroposophic medicinal products, in line with the provisions of Articles 13.1 and/or article 5.1 of Directive 2001/83.

This two day event was a successful membership activity, which has created political, legal and regulatory opportunities for our products in the short and medium term. The meetings will now be followed up with concrete activities. ECHAMP News will report on these as they are developed and implemented.

Nand De Herdt
ECHAMP General Secretary