Because healthcare is largely the responsibility of Member States of the EU, there is no harmonised EU policy in the area of health and long term care and no policy dedicated to family carers.  However the aging of the Euro population means that more and more people will need care or will give care and by reason of the scale of the challenge common actions across the EU need to be taken.

This was stated by Marian Harkin MEP when she spoke at a roundtable seminar in the European Parliament entitled 'Care in a modern economy: Everyone's Business'.

Marian Harkin MEP stated: - "It is not that people are unkind, perhaps uncaring at times, it is not that Governments do not fully understand the burden on carers, it is just that the work of carers has traditionally been unrecognised and undervalued and therefore is not at the heart of policy making and is certainly not everyone's business"

"Therein is the dilemma for carers. There are 100 million carers across the E.U. and carers care because they want to however, for the vast majority, there is no choice and carers are carrying a huge burden without adequate support

"Because it is unpaid, because it does not count as contributing to GDP, because it does not feature in the balance of payments then, policy makers, the movers and shakers, do not factor caring into their overall policy making activity. They do not recognise or deal with the reality of caring. Current policies do prevent a total collapse of the system of care but they do not underpin it and, crucially, existing policies will not sustain caring in the medium and long term",  Marian Harkin MEP concluded.