The Commission is the politically independent institution that represents and upholds the interests of the EU as a whole. It is the driving force within the EU’s institutional system: it proposes legislation, policies and programmes of action and it is responsible for implementing the decisions of Parliament and the Council.

Like the Parliament and Council, the European Commission was set up in the 1950s under the EU’s founding treaties.

The Health & Consumer Protection DG job is to help make Europe\'s citizens healthier, safer and more confident.

Over the years the European Union has established EU laws on the safety of food and other products, on consumers\' rights and on the protection of people\'s health.

The Council is the EU\'s main decision-making body. Like the European Parliament, the Council was set up by the founding treaties in the 1950s. It represents the member states, and its meetings are attended by one minister from each of the EU\'s national governments.

The European Parliament represents the EU\'s citizens and is directly elected by them.

The members of the European Parliament (MEPs) sit not in national blocks but in Europe-wide political groups that bring together all the main political parties operating in the EU member states.

The Parliament\'s origins go back to the 1950s and the founding treaties. Since 1979, MEPs have been directly elected by the citizens they represent.

Parliamentary elections are held every five years, and every EU citizen who is registered as a voter is entitled to vote. So Parliament expresses the democratic will of the Union\'s 374 million citizens, and it represents their interests in discussions with the other EU institutions.

In 2004, Josep Borrel Fontelles was elected President of the European Parliament.

This is the portal to the European Union law.

The Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE) is an umbrella organisation of veterinary organisations from 35 European countries. FVE also includes four specialised veterinary groups: Practising Veterinarians (UEVP), Hygienists and Public Health Veterinarians (UEVH), and State Veterinary Officers (EASVO).

FVE aims to defend the interests of the veterinary profession on European level by close contacts with, and written submissions to, the relevant European bodies and institutions.

FVE strives to maintain a structure to assemble opinions from all members of the European veterinary body and to formulate these opinions into one corporate voice.

The UEMS tackled straightaway the problem of quality, trying to obtain from the European Commission and the member States a level of training comparably high for the future medical specialists of the Six Common Market countries. This vision of the future resulted in the elaboration of common general criteria, applicable to all specialists wishing to move from one member country to another.

The Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union (PGEU) is the European association representing community pharmacists.

PGEU’s members are the national associations and professional bodies of community pharmacists in 29 European countries including EU Member States, EU candidate countries and EFTA members.

Through its members, PGEU represents around 400,000 community pharmacists contributing to the health of over 500 million people throughout Europe.

European Federation of Nurses Associations (EFN) was established in 1971. The Committee represents over a million nurses and is the independent voice of the nursing profession.

Membership consists of representatives from the national nurses association in membership with the International Council of Nurses from each EU Member State and countries in membership of the Council of Europe, many of which are applicants for EU membership status.

Representatives are also invited from the national nurses\' associations from countries which have made formal application for EU membership.

The cradle of ENPHE stood in Leuven. In 1992, the Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy of the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) organised a meeting for European schools of physiotherapy with a 4 year educational programme. Some attendants of this meeting kept in touch with each other and the idea of setting up a European network of physiotherapy schools was elaborated.

Karel Stappaerts from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), Patrick Willems from the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), Mary Garrett from University College of Dublin (Ireland) and Henri Bour from the Polytechnic of Utrecht (The Netherlands) prepared a meeting in order to create a European Network of Physiotherapy in Higher Education (ENPHE). The organisation was done by the University of Leuven and more than 400 European schools of physiotherapy were invited for this founding meeting in Leuven on 11th and 12th February 1995.

83 participants from 68 schools, coming from 15 European countries attended the meeting, which was financially supported by the European Commission. In the opening session, the participants were addressed by the rector of the University of Leuven, Mrs. Kiki Verli who represented the Task Force Human Resources 'Education, formation and youth' of the EC, Mr. Antonio Lopes who represented the SLCP and Prof. Jean Camy, one of the initiators of a European network for schools of physical education. In the following session, a presentation and a first analysis of physiotherapy education systems in different European countries was given. The meeting ended up with the presentation of the charter of ENPHE and the election of the national representatives in the Coordinating Group. Within the Coordinating Group, four officers in the Executive Board were elected. Karel Stappaerts was elected as president, Mary Garrett as vice-president, Henri Bour as secretary general and Michel Paparemborde from Lille (France) as treasurer.

The Public Health Portal of the European Union

The European Commission has recently launched the EU public health portal as a single point of reference for reliable and easily accessible information on a wide range of health-related topics for citizens, patients, health professionals, stakeholders and policy-makers.