European Pharmaceutical Union

The European Pharmaceutical Union, abbreviated as EPU, is a European association of individuals, national pharmacy associations and European pharmacy associations that represent pharmacists, and pharmaceutical scientists in Europe. It was founded in 2005.

About the EPU
The European Pharmaceutical Union (EPU) is a non-profit, non-political European organisation. The EPU was created to bring European pharmacy together. When the EPU was created there was no overall organisation to represent all European pharmacists. Several different European pharmaceutical organisations did exist but all were specialised in a specific field. The creators of EPU felt that a forum was needed to fill this gap. The idea behind EPU is to bring Europe's pharmacists, and those concerned with European pharmacy, together. By encouraging discussion and dialogue between all the different players in the European pharmacy field it is easier to achieve consensus on issues that affect European pharmacy and European pharmacists.

The goals of the EPU are to:

- help unify and improve all that concerns European pharmacy,

- advance general society in order to improve all that is directly or indirectly concerned with health, from a European pharmacy perspective and within the competences of the organisation,

- and in general, any actions directly or indirectly connected to these objectives or any similar or related actions that are likely to improve or develop the organisation.

EPU consists of individual members and association members. All members have a say in the running of the organisation and have a right to benefit fully from the organisation. Together members of the association discuss and form the policies and opinions of the association and then move to influence the way European pharmacy evolves.

The EPU Structure
The Parliament meets at least once a year during a session of the Ordinary General Assembly. The Parliament is EPU's highest decision making body. All members of the EPU are represented in the Parliament. The Parliament consists of two bodies, the Council and the Agora. For decisions of the Parliament to be approved both the Council and the Agora must approve them.

The Council consists of representatives of all Association Members. In the Council each association has a number of votes depending on the size of the country they represent and the number of assocations representing the country.

The Agora consists of the EPU's individual members. In the Agora each member has one vote.

The Board of Directors consists of elected members and observer members. The term of an elected members is three years and each year one third of the positions are up for election. The elections are held during the Ordinary General Assembly. EPU is run by the Board of Directors. The purpose of the Board of Directors is to implement the necessary actions to achieve the statutory objectives of the association, according to the conditions stipulated in the Internal Rules of the Association.

The Executive Board is chosen from amongst the members of the Board of Directors. The role of the Executive Board is to run the assocation on a daily basis. The Executive Board is responsible for implementing the decisions of the Parliament and the Board of Directors.