This year has been of special important for EFA, not only our membership grew with three new members from Croatia, Ireland and Latvia, but also we welcomed new faces in our team. 2014 has been a year of significant developments at the European arena. The biggest change is related to the election of the new European Parliament and the new European Commission for the term 2014-2019. To ensure the needs and asks of asthma, allergy and COPD patients are present on the agenda during the new legislative term, EFA and its members presented its priorities through the EFA Manifesto. In 2014, the Manifesto was supported by more than 1,000 individual patients and almost 50 policy-makers.
As a milestone the EU adopted the Tobacco Products Directive introducing new provisions regarding warnings, packaging, labelling, information on addictives and manufacturing, as well as control of tobacco products. EFA advocated throughout the legislative process for the promotion of public health in Europe and the enhancement of rights of patients with asthma, allergy and COPD. In 2015 we will continue encouraging strict implementation of the Directive, in collaboration with our members and partners. Another crucial legislation aimed to facilitate life of food allergy sufferers has come into force as of 13 December 2014. The key developments introduced by the new EU food labelling rules are explained in the separate article of this last newsletter of 2014.
In addition, EFA made great strides in the field of EFA and EU projects. In 2014 we discussed discriminatory practices among European Airlines against passengers that require oxygen therapy as a continuation of our EFA's Oxygen Harmonisation Project of 2013 and that was our theme on the World COPD Day. The results of the Allergy Risk Check 2013 in Austria were presented at the EAACI Congress and later published in the EAACI Atlas of Allergies. Under the Allergy Awareness Project EFA members from Bulgaria and Norway started up national allergy programmes in their countries and we prepared a dissemination version of our Allergy Alert paper that, endorsed by IPCRG, UEMS, EAACI and ARIA, will be presented at national level to encourage other countries to strive for harmonization of pre- and postgraduate medical education in the field of Allergology. In 2014, for the first time, EFA launched a Capacity Building Project for members to increase members’ capacity to run their own project and improve their ability for future involvement in EFA Projects. The first meetings took place in Italy, Lithuania and Portugal.
The year 2014 also encompassed many activities around the EU Innovative Research Projects that we are partnering in. We organized an event at the European Parliament with relevant stakeholders on ongoing research initiatives for allergy, asthma and COPD (U-BIOPRED , EARIP , MeDALL and AirPROM). We prepared an AirPROM Booklet on findings and experiences regarding lung modelling in Europe and we submitted a manuscript on existing asthma programmes in Europe to the EARIP project that will be published by the European Respiratory Review (ERR) in the beginning of 2015. Within the U-BIOPRED Project, we created a Patient Input Platform Framework Document that laid out a collective storyline for PIP members and provided them with the opportunity to reflect on their role within at different stages of the project. We are already looking ahead into the opportunities and challenges that 2015 bring and we will count your patient expertise and voice to continue working for a Europe where allergy, asthma and COPD patients live healthier and uncompromised lives.