Although I understand from the presidency that the inquiry is still underway, I have a very straightforward question: are the Council, and hence all the Member States, behind the idea of regulating this issue by means of a European instrument?
One major issue is how to regulate this brave new world.
Some states have laws requiring a certain ratio of nurses to patients in particular health-care sectors, but most do not regulate the issue at all.
But that was one of very few attempts to regulate the issue internationally, which opponents argue is a big missing ingredient given that large-scale deployment of technologies in one country could have significant impacts in others.
The Palestinian president has stated clearly for some time that if the UN Security Council does not address this problem, the UN's latest non-member state will join the Rome Statute which regulates the issue of the criminal court.
In 2006 Austria promulgated a law regulating the issue of advance directives, mainly regarding the prolongation of the treatment, albeit the Dutch experience preceded the others' [ 10].
Dutch physicians define the situation ' medisch zinloos' [ senseless], and the Netherlands was the first state to legislate on end-of-life situations, thus regulating the issue [ 8].
To this end, the 2012 reform allows enterprise agreements to regulate all issue irrespective of what higher-order agreements stipulate.
After much consultation and lobbying, a draft of Royal Decree regulating these issues was approved and was published in 2014: Royal Decree 639/2014, July 25 [ 14].
