• Technology

• Health

• Environment

• Project Co-ordinator: Dott. Rupert Leitner

• Contact: Priv.-Doz. Dr. med. Felix Thiele, M. Sc.

• Memorandum: B. v. Maydell et al.: Enabling Social Europe. Springer-Verlag, 2006, (Wissenschaftsethik und Technikfolgenbeurteilung, Vol. 26)

• Duration: 1/03–6/05

• Further Information on “Health Care”

The enlargement of the European Union through the inclusion of new member states brings with it a significant widening of economic gaps as well as structural differences in the political and legal institutions of the EU’s national social systems. The coordination and harmonization needs of the institutions and measures of social policy between the member states, will not only augment, but will also become increasingly complex; the same will hold true between the institutions and the legal and political actions at Union level.
Issues of particular interest in this regard are: the comparison of absolute or uniform versus relational standards of poverty or social need, the effects of different demographic patterns and of international migration and workforce mobility, legal aspects of contribution duties and participation rights in competing social systems, conflicts between goals of social justice and aims of economic efficiency, and questions on how, by which community and to what degree equality has to be guaranteed. The project focused on the analysis of the needs of political measures in terms of available options of action and feasible objectives which have to be implemented in order to realize a sufficient level of international harmonization and integration.
The different branches of the social system – e.g. welfare aid, social insurance, unemployment insurance, pension scheme, health insurance etc. – have been considered from this perspective of needs and opportunities of political action on a national as well as on a Union level.

Health Care