European Policy Analysis
centers of disease control . In the mid- 1990s , the Charter Group had been developing jointly agreed standards for disease surveillance via the prioritization of infectious diseases ( Newton , Grimaud , and Weinberg 1999 ); and , as soon as September 1995 they published a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of epidemiologic surveillance “ Eurosurveillance ” and developed a highlevel program for Intervention Epidemic Training ( EPIET ), training public health doctors and epidemiologists to the same methods , standards and ethos ( Bartlett 1998 ). At this point , the proposal was already producing increasing returns : it had been successfully accepted within the policy community and involved efforts of both research and policy design . The idea had then been translated into the real world and mobilized as part of the policy community . It thus had a structuring value for the policy community , mobilized resources and may , in the future , inhibit its members from seeing a need for change .
The Charter Group ’ s network approach was politically endorsed in September 1998 with the creation of A Network for the Epidemiological Surveillance and Control of Communicable Diseases in the Community established by a decision of the EP and the Council of the European Union . B However , decisions are nonbinding instruments , here used in order to facilitate the work of the Charter group and provide limited funding rather than to create a new instrument . The decision lists epidemiological surveillance and prevention , two elements of the self-defined mission of the Charter group , and was first and foremost a list of guidelines on desirable developments of the networks . This decision underlines that increasing returns started to be more important because of the financial costs and because the network mobilized efforts from the experts of the policy community as well as European decision makers .
The primeval soup became thicker as another proposal emerged : in September 1998 , the International Board of Scientific Advisors ( a group mainly comprised of micro-biologists and researchers ) met in Paris and manifested their support in favor of a European Centre for Infectious Disease ( ECID ) ( Butler 1998 ). The idea was also supported by “ several scientific organizations , including the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases ” ( Butler 1998 ). The proposal was championed by Michel Tibayrenc , Director of the Centres d ’ Etudes sur le Polymorphisme des Mico-organismes in Montpellier , France and suggested the creation of “ scientific board ” based on the existing US Center for Disease Control ( CDC ). In this perspective , the ECID would be created bearing in mind that “ health policy remaining under the sovereignty of each nation and the ECID providing complementary overall coordination ” ( Tibayrenc 1998 ). Rather than cooperation based on surveillance of disease , the ECID would be a more ambitious idea , as its inspiration the
B
Decision No 2119 / 98 / EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 September 1998 setting up a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the Community , 1998 ).
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