WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3549/98 by Katerina DASKALAKI to the Commission. Fees of private clinics in Greece
28. 6. 1999 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 182/97 number of inhabitants born outside the EU, the country of origin of immigrants, figures for the recruitment of labour and the age of foreign-born inhabitants. The Member States included are Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Sweden but not Germany. Why does the Statistical Office conduct surveys of the population structure in EU Member States that exclude the Member State with the largest population and what contribution does a survey that gives no details of foreigners or the foreign-born population in Germany make to knowledge of the Community? Answer given by Mr de Silguy on behalf of the Commission (5 February 1999) Following regular requests to the Commission for data on population by country of birth, Member States were asked in 1996 to provide the relevant information to Eurostat. Several Member States, including Germany, could not provide all the information requested, but given the interest of the public it was considered useful to publish the available information in ‘Statistics in Focus’ and in the Eurostat database ‘New Cronos. ’ No totals for the whole Community are calculated, given the lack of information from Germany and other Member States. When more information becomes available from Member States (for example after a census) it will be put in the database. (1999/C 182/129) WRITTEN QUESTION E-3549/98 by Katerina Daskalaki (UPE) to the Commission (1 December 1998) Subject: Fees of private clinics in Greece Public hospitals in Greece have raised their fees by 60-100 % and psychiatric clinics by 35 %; these fees are paid by the insurance funds. In contrast, the fees of general clinics in the private sector have been frozen for a period of six years despite repeated protests from the Greek Association of Private Clinics against such unfair treatment. Is this situation consistent with the rules on competition and is there a means of eliminating these disparities? Answer given by Mr Van Miert on behalf of the Commission (15 January 1999) The Commission can inform the Honourable Member that possible anti-competitive practices which have consequences mainly for a national market have in principle to be examined by the authorities in that Member State under national competition law. The practices described by the Honourable Member appear to relate only to Greek hospitals and clinics, so the Greek competition authorities are the most appropriate authorities to deal with the her question. As to the compatibility of the situation with competition rules, the Commission does not have sufficient information to allow it to take a position