EUI Employees Union’s position on the EC PMO – Italian Health Ministry draft agreement on a Tessera Sanitaria Depotenziata (TS*)

The EUI Employees Union’s says NO to the negotiations around a draft agreement between EC PMO and the Italian Health Ministry on a Tessera Sanitaria Depotenziata (TS*).

We fight for: 

• Active and retired personnel and their families must have guaranteed health protection through the coverage of a national healthcare system as for all other European Union citizens in Italy. 
• All Italian and non-Italian citizens/colleagues resident in Italy must have obligatory (i.e. free) access to the National Healthcare System (SSN) and the Italian card valid as European card (Tessera Europea Assicurazione Malattia – TEAM) in all EU countries.
  

We are against: 

• the proposed Italian health card (TS*) – valid only on the Italian territory – because it deprives both Italian and non-Italian colleagues of their constitutional rights, giving less to all.

We will continue to oppose such an agreement and we will take every further available action against its entry into force.  

We urge: 

• The EUI to become involved in the negotiations with the Italian authorities (Ministry and Tuscany Region) and to involve the social parts in this dialogue 
• The EC to transparently share the legal opinion on the EU officials’ with JSIS coverage access to SSN 
  

We believe that: 

• The same rights should be granted to non-EU citizens/colleagues resident in Italy. 
• The agreement (as it is drafted) would be advantageous only for those colleagues who decided not to move their residence to Italy and who are indeed not entitled to the obligatory SSN. 
• Solutions should be sought and found also for colleagues who are not resident in Italy.
• EU officials resident in Italy, currently excluded from the right to coverage by the Italian health system, are deprived of a right guaranteed to all EU citizens resident in Italy. 
• The agreement does not respect art. 32 of the Italian constitution, and in particular the equity principle (All citizens must be guaranteed equal access in relation to equal health needs.) Alienating a constitutional right to Italian citizens (and all those who currently enjoys free access to the system) should not be considered.  
• JSIS acts as a private health insurance, which decides on its reimbursement schemes with ceilings and may refuse to pay for medical care that their consultants deem unnecessary in disagreement with ones’ doctors. For JSIS we are clients and have no rights guaranteed for citizens. Hence JSIS health insurance is not comparable to a public national health system. JSIS should be considered for what it is: an employment benefit, and it is described as such in our statute.   
• The EC cannot negotiate with the Italian state on behalf of Italian and non-Italian staff without the consent and information of the staff! The EUI and other EU organizations are our employers not our political representatives towards the national states. We signed an employment contract, we did not vote them to decide for our social rights with the state! If the agreement is signed, we won’t even have the possibility to decide whether to keep JSIS or the NHS coverage as primary health coverage.