By Cindy Franssen

Cancer survivorship as seen by insurance companies and other financial providers to date can be a life sentence.

Imagine, you lived and beat leukaemia when you were fourteen. Now you are twenty-five, you just graduated, and would like to buy a house. You go to the bank and ask for a mortgage but it turns out you cannot get one or it is much more expensive than the mortgage your friends got, who were fortunate enough never to get ill. You feel punished for surviving cancer.

To prevent this we must make sure that no cancer survivor pays twice for his or her disease: once cured, everyone should be able to pick up normal life, without obstacles.

Europe has a Plan

Europe has come up with a plan. It comes in the shape of a document the European Commission has called Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. It has great ambitions for cancer prevention and treatment, but is not as strong when it comes to aftercare. With it, the European Commission, amongst others, wants to put in place a so-called code of conduct with businesses. This would make sure that cancer survivors would only need to share necessary and vital information, when requested.

This is a start. But for us, the European People’s Party, this is not enough. We must dare to think big. We want to make the Right to Be Forgotten a European law to prevent unfair discrimination in cancer patients’ access to financial services.

We must dare to think big. We want to make the Right to Be Forgotten a European law.

There are best practices we could follow

France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have already made sure that cancer survivors can use their Right to be Forgotten when, for instance, applying for a mortgage ten years after the end of their treatment, if there has been no relapse. Some of the listed countries use five years in the case of paediatric cancers. The reduced period for children, adolescents and young adults, based on scientific insights and medical progress, is crucial to support the start of normal adult life. These best practices from France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands also include relevant exceptions for a number of cancers with a better prognosis. They update this list regularly.

...but we are not there yet.

In most EU countries, however, patients who survive cancer often have to pay particularly high premiums for basic financial services for years.

How can we change this? Patients, regardless of their origin, should be able to enjoy the Right to be Forgotten.

As a first step, this right should be primarily about debt, because it has the most far-reaching financial consequences. We want to help Member States, patients and financial service providers to build up a forum where they could share best practices and experiences.

But we want to go even one-step further.

The Right to be Forgotten must not be based on postcodes. There must be no first and second-class citizens in Europe. All cancer survivors must have the Right to be Forgotten.

The Right to be Forgotten must not be based on postcodes. There must be no first and second-class citizens in Europe. All cancer survivors must have the Right to be Forgotten.

We can achieve this either through a new European law or by changing the already existing law, such as, for instance, the Insurance Distribution Directive or the Consumer Credit Directive.

Our success

The EU's Beating Cancer Plan is a success for the European People's Party, as we campaigned for it in the 2019 European elections. Now, we need to make it a European success. Ensuring an EU-wide Right to be Forgotten is one of our priorities for the European Parliament’s Beating Cancer Committee.


Cindy Franssen MEP, EPP Group Coordinator in the Special Committee on beating cancer (BECA).