News

The programme of the study trip is available (click on the link).

An AIM delegation composed of 5 European countries met the Commissioner and received its support for a European Mutual Statute. The delegation was composed of AIM President Jean-Philippe Huchet, the Chairman of the Mutuals Working Group, Pedro Bleck da Silva (PT), Lawrence Christensen from Benenden (UK), Sabrina Luise from FIMIV (IT), Christian Horemans from MLOZ (BE).

At the occasion of the French Congress on Mutuality, the French Minister for Social Economy Mr Benoît Hamon expressed its strong support to mutuals as model for the future development of the healthcare system and the need for a European Mutual Statute in Europe.

AIM Vice-President Eleni Spanopoulou, Vice-President of AIM greeted French President François Hollande on Saturday 20 October, after his speech granting unconditional support to the mutualist movement. Read our Press Release.

The European Parliament is realising an Own-Initiative Report on the European Mutual Statute. In this context, AIM, AMICE are organising with MEP Berlinguer a Conference on 26 September where the Report of MEP Berlinguer will be presented for the first time. Join us to support the European Mutual Statute! To register send us an e-mail by clicking on contact us. (Read More)

A crucial actor in Europe, Mutual benefit societies are bound to play a significant role in Europe's future. The think tank Notre Europe has therefore invited AIM to present mutual societies. Mr Christian Horemans from MLOZ (BE) will speak in this event on behalf of AIM together with Mr Apostolos Ioakimidis from the European Commission and MEP Luigi Berlinguer. (Programme and Registration available)

AIM will be represented by its President Jean-Philippe Huchet in this event of the European Economic and Social Committee on social enterprises. Mutual benefit societies are social enterprises and advocate for a better recognition of the sector of social business. (Programme and registration available)

Vice-President José-Maria Garriga was invited as speaker on the topic of social Economy and democracy in the side-event organised by the Association "Rencontres du Mont Blanc" (Press Release is available). At this occasion, our vice-president met with the newly appointed French Minister for Social Economy, Mr Benoît Hamon (picture).

In the framework of the EMPL Committee's consideration of the draft legislative opinion of Regina Bastos (EPP - PT) on the "Statute for a European mutual society" a hearing has been organised on 20 june 2012. The presentations of the invited experts was followed by an exchange of views with Members.

The conference will be dedicated to Health Technology Assessment in national and cross-border healthcare in Europe, The Conference is jointly organised by the Health Care Insurance Board, CVZ, Netherlands and the Agency for Health Technology Assessment, AHTAPol, Poland, supported by the EUnetHTA Secretariat.

The study ordered by the EP Employment Committee on the role of mutual societies in the 21st century is now available. The study was realised by the Dutch organisation Research voor Beleid. The Authors are: D. Grijpstra, S. Broek, B.J. Buiskool and M. Plooij

On June 17, 2011, in the framework of the XXVIIIth General Assembly of the International Association of Mutual Benefit Societies (AIM), the Board of directors proceeded to the election of a new Presidium for a three years period. Jean-Philippe Huchet (FNMF, France) was elected at the position of president

The European Parliament has improved the European Commission?s proposals, but these still offer no real value for citizens.

Two important events recently took place in Buenos Aires, Argentine Republic: 1) VI World Meeting of mutual in social economy; 2) First Meeting of Health Cooperatives and Mutuals

The European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies is happy to announce the Observatory Venice Summer School 2010. The theme for this year’s Summer School will be: EU integration and health systems: challenges and opportunities for patients, professionals and policy-makers.

At the occasion of the World Cancer Day 2010 (4 February) AIM wants to support the campaign "Cancer can be prevented too", launched by the International Union Against Cancer (UICC).

Expert meeting in the European Parliament, Brussels, Wednesday 27 January 2010

Dr. Thormas Ulmer (EPP, D) and Carl Schlyter (Greens, S) are hosting on 2 December a public meeting on relevant health information for patients & consumers: "A closer look at the legislative proposals on information to patients: making the right choice for Europe?" The meeting is facilitated by AIM, BEUC, HAI, ISDB, MiEF and FNMF.

Abdelmoula Abdelmoumni has been confirmed as President of the Union Africaine de la Mutualité (UAM). His election came after Mohammed El Farrah left office earlier this year and who has hold the Presidency since the creation of UAM in 2007. Abdelmoula Abdelmoumni had been elected President of MGPAP, as a successor to El Farrah, in June this year.

A unique opportunity for health and mutuality actors to share their experiences, compare their analyses, define combined and coordinated actions, initiate or strengthen partnerships.

The Board of Directors of MGEN has elected Thierry Beaudet as a President, succeeding to Jean-Michel Laxalt who has held that post for 10 years.

During the meetings of the XXIVth General Assembly Mr Abdelaziz Alaoui has been elected Vice-President of AIM. He will represent the non-European members in the Presidium. Abdelaziz Aloui (1951, Fes, MA) is President of CMIM (Caisse Mutualiste Interprofessionnelle Marocaine) and a Director of CIH (Credit Immobilier et Hotelier) in Casablanca. As a Vice-President at AIM, he is the successor of Mr Mohammed El Farrah.

On 14-15 May 2009, the Education and Solidarity Network has been launched at an international conference attended by some 300 participants from 60 countries worldwide. AIM, together with Education International, MGEN and ILO/STEP initiated the Education and Solidarity Network. Via this partnership AIM will further contribute to the development of social security systems and the creation of mutual benefit societies by working closely together with education professionals around the world.

Solidarity and creating links between young, middle and older generations should not be limited to strict financial concepts but to a broader view of the promotion of mutual cooperation and interchanges between the generations as well as a better understanding and new forms of co-existence.

Mr. Abdelhak Slaoui (President), Mr. Azeddine Zekri (1st Vice-President) and Mr. Hausny Hachimi Idrissi (Treasurer) introduced MAS to the staff of AIM and learnt from the international association and its activities.

Benenden Healthcare Society has confirmed Ken Hesketh as its Chief Executive as it further strengthens its management team. Mr Hesketh has been acting Chief Executive since September, having previously been Director of the Society´s Benenden Hospital in Kent.

AIM is a partner of the 5th World Healthcare Congress Europe. Member organisations that want to participate in this event, can profit from a discount.

AIM, together with Education International, MGEN and ILO/STEP started a new project called Education and Solidarity Network. Via this partnership AIM will further contribute to the development of social security systems and the creation of mutual benefit societies by working closely together with education professionals around the world.

On 4 September 2008, AIM´s Czech member organisation SZP-CZ has elected a new Board. Mr Ladislav Friedrich has been elected President. He is a Director-general of OZP, the occupational health insurance company for employees of the banking, insurance and construction industry. He succeeds to Mr Vladimir Kothera (Director-general at METAL-ALLIANCE) who was elected Vice-President. The Board has been completed by the election of Jaromir Gajdácek as a second Vice-President. Mr Gajdácek is a Director-general at the health insurance company of the Czech Ministry of Interior Affairs and was a Director-general of SZP-CZ until recently.

On 10 June, at the Health Council meeting, European Health Ministers discussed the topic of information to patients on pharmaceuticals. Most delegations agreed on the following views: the need to further develop means of distinction between advertising and information, the need to maintain the ban on advertising for prescription-only medicines, the role of Health Competent Authorities and healthcare professions to provide information to patients. About 20 health stakeholder organisations including AIM sent a joint letter to the EU Health Ministers to express the almost unanimous opposition from civil society to the proposal from the European Commission to allow pharmaceutical companies to provide information on their prescription drugs directly to the public, via all available media.

Paul van Rooij and Tony Lamping will complete the board of Directors at Zorgverzekeraars Nederland (ZN). As from 1 June, Van Rooij will act as a deputy-Director Care. Lamping will start as a Director Care in September. They form together with Pieter Hasekamp, Director-general, and Theo Hoppenbrouwers, Director Insurance, the new full board of Directors of ZN.

Jimmy Tolan , Chief Executive , Vhi Healthcare will replace Vincent Sheridan who has retired as Chief Executive and Declan Moran, Director of Marketing and Business Development will replace Pat Farrell, who recently retired as a Non Executive Director at the end of his term of office.

Gestarsalud, AIM-member from Colombia, has elected a new Board. Dr. Gustavo Adolfo Aguilar Vivas is elected President, Dra. Maria Magdalena Florez Ramos will act as a Vice-President and Dr. Galo de Jesús Viana Muñoz has been elected Secretary. Dra. Elisa Carolina Torrenegra Cabrera is still in the post of CEO.

The European Commission has formally requested Belgium to amend its national rules so that the private sickness funds (mutualités/ziekenfondsen) comply with the EU insurance directives when they offer complementary health insurance cover outside the scope of obligatory social security.

The Board of santésuisse has elected Stefan Kaufmann as successor to Fritz Britt, who died recently. Stefan Kaufmann (41) was deputy-director of santésuisse since 2003 and Head of the Resources and logistics Department. He started working for santésuisse in 1999, after a three-year management position in UNIMEDES in Lucern.

As from March 1st, Mrs Zuzana Zvolenska started as the new Director-general of the General Health Insurance Company VZP in Slovakia. As such, she succeeds to Mr Anton Kovacik, who accepted a post as a policy advisor to the Minister of Health. Mrs Zvolenska (1972) started her career in the banking and insurance sector. Since 2002 she is active in the healthcare sector.

The European Court of Justice has decided that the European Commission acted within its powers in facilitating the introduction of Risk Equalisation in Ireland. In dismissing the BUPA action, the Court declared that "Such a mechanism is a necessary and proportionate means of compensating the insurers required to cover, at the same price, all persons living in Ireland, independently of their state of health, age or sex".

Nutrition Day in Europe, 31 January, sees more than 30 countries from across Europe take part in a study into the nutritional regime of patients. It aims to increase awareness and knowledge on the importance of nutrition status and care on recovery from illness in patients, care givers and relatives as well as political and economic decision makers. Its ultimate objective is to reduce the burden of illness and decrease health care costs.

The Board of Governors of VdAK has elected Thomas Ballast (1962) as a new CEO. On 12 December 2007, the AEV already elected Mr Ballast as its CEO. Mr Ballast will combine both functions and will start on 1 January 2008. He replaces Dr Werner Gerdelmann, who has been a member of the Board since 1996.

On 21 January, employees of BKK Bundesverband and many guests from politics, economy, sick funds and associations have celebrated the 100th birthday of BKK Bundesverband in Essen. Over the last century, the German compulsory healthcare insurance system has been challenged many times, which has been mastered by the BKK system in an engaged and entrepreneurial way. Today, BKK serves about 14 Million insured.

In a letter to EU Commission President J.M. Barroso, AIM, ACME and AISAM have presented the joint text for a draft of the European statute for mutual societies. The text is the fruit of an intensive collaboration of the three representative associations of mutual societies.

Pieter Hasekamp (42) has been named CEO of Zorgverzekeraars Nederland (ZN) and will strart in his new job on 1 January 2008. Hasekamp currently holds a post at the Dutch Ministry of Health as a Director Healthcare Insurance. As such, he stood at the cradle of the new health insurance system, which was introduced in 2006. Hasekamp will succeed Martin Bontje, who left ZN in June 2007 to become a Board member of healthcare insurance company UVIT.

Moroccan Mohemed El Farrah, President of MGPAP, has been elected as the first President of the African Union of Mutuals, UAM. The UAM aims at reinforcing co-operation between African countries in the field of healthcare and social insurance. It is also meant to be a forum for co-ordination and representation of mutuals in the region. The idea of the creation of the UAM was taken in March 2007 in Rabat at the occasion of the African Meeting of the Mutuality organized by the MGPAP, where the steering committee for its creation was composed of the MGPAP (Morocco), the UNAM (Tunisia), the UTM (Mali) and the MFAE (Senegal).

In a conference in Lisbon yesterday, Minister J.A. Vieira da Silva, representing the Portuguese Presidency of the EU welcomed the recent important developments in the field of the European regulation of mutual societies. He stressed that the joint position of the associations representing mutual societies creates renewed conditions concerning the legitimate mutual sector?s call for the adoption of a European mutual society statute.

Mutuality in Europe Today is an initiative of the Association Internationale de la Mutualité (AIM) and is a joint project of the three representative associations of mutuals in Europe.

The Board of Governors of AIM has welcomed two new members at its meeting in York. The new members are "La Rwandaise d´Assurance Maladie" (RAMA) from Rwanda and the "Caisse Mutualiste Interprofessionelle Maroccaine" (CMIM) from Morocco.

World Congress, in partnership with the Association Internationale de la Mutualité (AIM), organises the Leadership Summit on Chronic Care on 3-4 December 2007 in Amsterdam (NL).

FIMIV just elected Mr Placido Putzolu as its new President

The 4th Forum of the Network of actors of the development of mutual benefit societies ''la Concertation'' will take place on 26-27 November in Dakar.

Mrs Dr Doris Pfeiffer, CEO of VdAK/AEV, has been named Executive Board member of the new German Board for Sicknessfunds (Spitzenverband Bund der Krankenkassen). Pfeiffer will start in her new job as from 1 July 2007. As a member of the Executive Board, she will be responsible for the building up of the organisation of the new German Board for Sicknessfunds. The new Board must be operational as from 1 July 2008. On 9 July, the Supervisory Board of the Spitzenverband Bund will name other members of the Executive Board. The Supervisory Board has been elected in May. Among the members, there are five members of AIM. Willi Budde, AIM President, has been elected President of the Supervisory Board of the Spitzenverband Bund der Krankenkassen.

AIM together with ESIP call on the Pharmaceutical Forum to really empower EU citizens and patients through the access to comparative, unbiased high-quality information generated by official independent bodies within a validated process. The proposal of a European quality label got general support from the Members of the Forum. As AIM always stressed, the forum members affirmed that DTCA stays forbidden in the EU.

Mr Willi Budde, AIM President, Mr Hans Bender, Mr Ludwig Huber, Mr Hans-Jurgen Muller and Mr Leo Blum are elected as a member of the Supervisory Board (Verwaltungsrat) of the new German Board for Sickness Funds (Spitzenverband Bund der Krankenkassen). The creation of a new Board is one of the key elements of the recent reform of the German health financing system. The new Board for Sickness Funds will constitute a single German representative structure for sickness funds. Untill recently, the different sort of sickness funds had their own representative Board. The Supervisory Board of the new structure will consist of 41 members, the Executive Board will consist of 3 members. The Executive Board has not been named yet.

An important European Conference on “Social and Health Services of General Interest – Towards an EU strategy?”, will be organised by the Collectif SSIG-FR in partnership with several European organisations including AIM, on 5 June 2007, in Brussels. Register now!

AIM, together with ACME, AISAM and Jonathan Evans (MEP) and Peter Skinner (MEP) invite all interested to learn and to discuss about Mutuality in Europe during a cocktail on Wednesday 6 June 2007, from 18-20.30h at the EP. Mutuality is still present and strong in European social and economic life and EU developments pose both challanges as well as opportunities to it. During the cocktail, members of AIM, ACME and AISAM will welcome any questions from attending guests.

Malnutrition is a burden to both individuals and their carers, as well as to the health care system. The European Nutrition for Health Alliance, of which AIM is a member, raises awareness for this issue and supports the inclusion of malnutrition in national and EU policy and health professionals agenda. ENHA presented this week its report of the conference From Malnutrition To Wellnutrition: policy to practice, held by the Alliance in Brussels on 22 November, 2006.

The representative associations of mutual societies AIM, AISAM and ACME work jointly on an European statute for mutuals...

Patient mobility in the EU is growing, but still marginal. AIM stresses the need for more practical solutions to mobility problems posed by differences in social security systems. Existing mechanisms and instruments for re-imbursement of cross border care should be adapted to the needs of patients, providers and healthcare financers. Today, at the hearing of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, Maurice Duranton, President of AIM, called on the European Commission and Member States to transpose the rulings of the European Court of Justice in the field of cross border care and to adapt the co-ordination regulations as soon as possible. Duranton said any new specific legislative initiatives are not yet needed and pointed to the several Euregional projects in healthcare as good practices of cross border care. To the statement of Maurice Duranton (in French only)

On 22 November 2006, the European Nutrition for Health Alliance (ENHA) is to organise the conference "From malnutrition to wellnutrition" in Brussels. The aim of the conference is to create an interactive forum that allows very diverse stakeholders to come together and discuss the relevance and implications of poor nutrition. AIM is partner of ENHA. Mr. Jan Van Emelen (MLOZ, B) and Marcel Smeets (DG AIM) will represent AIM and participate in the discussions.

Dr Margaret Chan of China will be the next Director-General of the WHO. Following her appointment, she told the World Health Assembly she wanted to be judged by the impact WHO's work has on the people of Africa and on women across the globe. Before being appointed DG of WHO, Dr Chan was WHO Assistant DG for Communicable Diseases and Representative of the DG for Pandemic Influenza.

Mr Willi Budde has been presented to the Board of Governors of AIM as the new President of the Association Internationale de la Mutualite, AIM. Budde will take over in March 2007 from the current President, Maurice Duranton. Budde will hold the post of President until the next General Assembly of AIM in 2008.

The Board of Governors of the Association Internationale de la Mutualite (AIM) has welcomed three new members. The new members, all from Latin America, are the Confedetation Argentina de Mutualidades (CAM) of Argentina, the Asocaicion Comite Nacional Mutualista de Republica de Columbia (CONAMUTUAL), and the Asociacion de Empresas Gestoras del Aseguramento en Salud (GESTAR SALUD), both from Colombia.

The Board of Governors of the Association Internationale de la Mutualité (AIM) has appointed Georgios Karpetas as new Vice-president. In his new position, Mr. Karpetas succeeds Mr. Marcel J.G. Smeets who accepted the post of Director-general of AIM.

AIM and ESIP, the umbrella organisations of social health insurers in Europe, call for a specific EU-logo as trust mark for the citizens to visualise accredited, independent information on medicines and alternative therapies. Maurice Duranton, AIM President, and Dr. Martine Gouello, ESIP delegate, have passed this message to the Pharmaceutical Forum today.

M.D. Pavel Horák MBA, Csc. has been appointed General director of the Czech General Health Insurance Company, VZP CR. Mr Horák has been designated by the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament on April 26th 2006. The new General director of VZP CR will personally participate as a member of the AIM European Affairs Committee and the Commitees' Expert panel.

The obligation to reimburse the cost of hospital treatment provided in another member state also applies to a national health service which provides such treatments free of charge. The According to the European Court of Justice, Ms Watts, a British citizen who went to France for a hip replacement, must be reimbursed by NHS.