Today, 17 July 2018, the Commission adopted a Decision which establishes the Steering Group on Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Management of Non-Communicable Diseases (“the Steering Group”) as a formal expert body. The objective of the Steering Group is to help the Member States reach the Sustainable Development Goals related to health and to reduce premature mortality from non-communicable disease.

The Steering Group will have a broad overview of public health policy and may set up subgroups to work on specific issues for limited time periods. Therefore, existing Commission expert groups set up for particular diseases, for example, those on cancer control and rare diseases, will now be replaced by the Steering Group.

In practice, the Steering Group will provide expert advice to the Commission on developing and implementing activities in the field of health promotion, disease prevention and the management of non-communicable diseases. It will also foster exchanges of relevant experience, policies and practices between the Member States.

The Steering Group will advise the Commission on the selection of best practices and using them to support their transfer and scaling up at the national and European level using the funds from the EU Health Programme or other EU financial instruments.

The Commission will chair the Steering Group made up of the Member States. It will hold its first formal meeting on 6 November 2018 in Luxembourg.

More information:

• Steering Group on Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Management of Non-Communicable Diseases