Ethics and the structures of health care in the European countries in transition: hospital ethics committees in Croatia.

profiles that are being published by different organisations (such as “health in transition”). The recent votes in France and the Netherlands against the European Constitution showed that the “democratic deficit” is not just the concern of the new member states. A democratic revolution should become an integral part of the ongoing healthcare reforms. WHO supports this process, since “participation” is one of the guiding values of the new “health for all” policy framework. The Solidarity movement, glasnost, and perestroika contributed to the European political transition of the 1990s. We now again need social solidarity—“health glasnost,” with informed patients in the lead role, and “health perestroika,” which will allow the current binding instruments to grow (including patients’ rights and citizens’ empowerment). In the emerging European healthcare systems patients and citizens refuse to play Cinderella; they demand a new play in which they can participate as co-creators. Lessons from the “East side story” could help create the “empowered europatient story.”