Hungary, currently holding the presidency of the Council of the EU, is pushing for the bloc to "overcome the barriers that currently prevent the full potential of organ transplantation from being realised in the EU" through a controversial proposal.
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00:00Europe currently has a shortage of organs, and waiting lists for transplants keep growing.
00:07As well as improving the quality of life of their recipients, transplants save public health systems money.
00:13For example, a kidney transplant recipient costs Spain 30,000 euros less per year than a patient on dialysis.
00:21Now, the Hungarian Presidency of the EU Council wants to put forward new proposals.
00:26One of their plans is to increase exchange between member states.
00:56We know that there are a lot of obstacles, financial obstacles, which can block the fast transport,
01:03which can reduce the quality of the transplantation of the organs.
01:07Between 2009 and 2015, the European Union implemented a plan for organ donation and transplantation,
01:13which increased donations by 21% at the European level.
01:17But overall, the percentage of donors differs greatly between EU countries.
01:21The figure ranges from an annual rate per million inhabitants, highest rate being 47 in Spain and 31.5 in Portugal,
01:29to lowest being 3.3 in Cyprus and 2.1 in Bulgaria.
01:33Figures are not very high anywhere because strict conditions must be met.
01:36That's why one option is to increase the number of donors by lowering the standards of organs.
01:42That means those who are older or have organs in poor condition will also be accepted.
01:47The classical donor which exists before, I can say that the young donor who has some accident,
01:54a traffic accident or something like that, it's nearly disappeared from the scope because of the quality of life,
02:00because of the security in the roads, in the ways and the security of the vehicles.
02:07So, it's now an exception.
02:09These organs with lower standards are called marginal donors
02:13and could be a temporary solution to shorten waiting lists and fill the organ shortage.
02:18Another Hungarian proposal is that countries like Germany should change their legislation
02:22so that all their citizens are required to be donors unless they have a reason not to be.
02:27In total, 18 countries have this opt-out system in the EU.