GUE/NGL MEP Alda Sousa has expressed her dissatisfaction following the voting behaviour of the majority of MEPs in the European Parliament which saw them reject measures seeking to enhance the safety of medical devices and ensure that member states apply existing EU safety rules consistently.

Alda Sousa commented: "The voting behaviour of the majority in Parliament has overturned important amendments that were achieved in the Environment Committee last month, but all is not lost."

"These files aimed to bring patient safety to the forefront. We are talking about the rights of our citizens to have access to information and the maximum level of security when they are either taking diagnostic tests or using medical devices, but all is not lost, we still have to see what the trialogues will bring," she continued.

"And it is in the negotiations in the trialogues that we need to guarantee that there will be no difference between the approval systems of high risk devices across the EU; whether in Lithuania or in Portugal I think it is very important that it is the same across the board, everybody deserves the same level of protection. It will be for these same guarantees that we will go on fighting."

GUE/NGL Press Contacts:
Emily Macintosh +32 470 85 05 08
Gay Kavanagh +32 473 84 23 20
European United Left / Nordic Green Left
European Parliamentary Group
www.guengl.eu