[European Union health strategy: public health for European people]

The member States have exclusive authority over health, but the European Union has the responsibility, pursuant to the provisions of Article 152 of the Treaty, of rounding out the policies of the member Status in order to enhance public health, prevent diseases and avoid sources of hazards to human health, which includes the fight against the most serious, widespread diseases (by supporting the research of their aetiology, their transmission and prevention), as well as health information and education and the surveillance of serious transborder threats to health, alerting in the event of such threats and combating the same. In order to fulfil these obligations, the European Commission presented the White Paper "Together for Health: A Strategic Approach for the EU 2008-2013" on October 23, 2007. But the community-based health strategy has been being taking shape for some time now by means of different documents which have progressively been prefiguring it, thus being the result of long years of continuous work which has been being done since the early nineties. Throughout this time, the Directorate General of Public Health has been taking part in the process of preparing these documents and thus in what is now being presented as the EU health strategy. The main idea around which this work revolves is that there is a patent continuity and clear public health content in both the White Paper and in the documents which preceded it in time.