On Wednesday 2 December, AER President Dr Hande Özsan Bozatli took part in a forum on the future of the welfare state in Europe organized at the invitation of the French Senate by the Lecanuet institute.

Surrounded by experts and politicians from all across Europe, the AER President illustrated how regions, at the end line and heart of delivering public services, provide quality services thanks to innovation through the example of the health sector. There is no such thing as a single vision of the welfare state across Europe. Each country has its own definition of the welfare state. What matters, in the end, is the delivery of public services according to the needs of the population. Regions, in that respect, play a key role, as they know best what is needed in their regions. Needs are different from one region to the other in terms of health. Only actors such as regions have the knowledge of their population needs and the means to develop adequate answers to respond to these needs. Going away from a unique vision of the welfare provisions, there are many different ways of providing the right service according to the needs of the population. This should not frighten us but on the contrary this is an improvement. Regions are very innovative in their ways of developing health provision. AER is a great platform for advanced regions in this field to share their best practices with regions which are looking at improving their policies in this field. Our committee 2 on health and social affairs organises many events to help all regions tackle these challenges (link to the webpage of committee 2).

Thanks to this event, AER is developing its network of European experts. A rendez vous has already been taken to involve them further in our future work, 2016 will be the year when AER will publish its report on the state of regionalism in Europe. Many experts from this event will take part in this work.