Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-12-11-Speech-2-272"
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"en.20011211.11.2-272"2
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".
Madam President, I must say that the fact that our work this evening is being chaired by an eminent specialist in trade matters is symbolic, and I should like to thank you, as well as all those present here this evening who believe that the Doha ministerial achieved positive results.
The structure of the negotiations themselves is still being finalised. On this point, we shall have to be scrupulous and careful to ensure that a certain number of the political balances that we obtained in the negotiating programme are not destroyed by some underhand means as a result of timetables with variable speeds, which would have the result of dealing with some subjects before others.
On the specific subject of intellectual property and medicines, as someone has already pointed out, the question of the use of compulsory licences by a developing country which does not have its own production capacity still has to be sorted out, and we shall be actively considering this issue and other issues too. We shall be proposing solutions that will be in the same spirit as what we have already done in order to achieve this compromise, a spirit which those of you who are familiar with the Commission’s position in February last year will easily have recognised. It should be noted, in passing, that most of the countries in question are exempt from the disciplines of the agreement on intellectual property until 2006.
Finally, to those of you who would like to see a reform of the WTO and who have pointed out, quite rightly, that this is not included in the working programme, I would reply that I share your view. Some progress has, admittedly, been made since Seattle, at least in practice, without making any formal changes to the rules of procedure. This is true in the case of transparency, and it is true as regards having a much larger number of the actors who sit around the WTO table being involved in the decision-making process, but I think that at Doha we probably went as far as we could in terms of what informal action can add to formal action, and I think that we shall have to think about this matter very soon.
As most of you have said, the serious negotiations are only just starting, and will continue during the years to come, in all probability with the maximum negotiating intensity somewhere between 2003 and 2004. We therefore have a little time to prepare for the peak in the negotiations which will no doubt occur at around that time.
I believe, therefore, that our method of working together has produced some good results, and I hope that during the negotiations we shall retain this spirit, which is at one and the same time positive, resolute and open, and which is the spirit in which we have been working for the last two years. In any case, you can count on Franz Fischler and myself to ensure that that is the case as far as the Commission’s contribution is concerned.
I should also like to thank, as Mr Fischler has done, those of you who have attributed part of that success to those negotiators who are this evening sitting on the Commission benches.
Having heard everyone who has spoken, I believe that the broad majority among you approve of what was achieved. The fact that your approval is not completely unanimous is a matter of regret, at least for Mr Fischler and myself. We shall try to do better next time.
The fact that the results obtained are of good quality is really due to the fact that this is the product of policy work in which Parliament and the Council played an important part. I believe that Doha has reminded us of a basic rule of Community algebra, which is that the weight of the negotiators is an exponential function of the solidarity of the Union. Once again that rule has proved to be true. Yet that solidarity was neither the result of a sudden act of faith nor the expression of blind confidence in the two negotiators, whatever the qualities that you have emphasised.
In reality, the solidarity derived its substance from the Union’s negotiating position and from the balance, which is in some ways intrinsic to our mandate, between liberalisation and regulation, between our general concerns here among the countries of the North and our openness towards the concerns of the countries of the South, between the specific values that we, as Europeans, wish to defend and our openness towards a number of the concerns felt by partners who do not necessarily share those values.
Of course, we did not achieve our objectives one hundred percent. That is true but, as in any negotiations, we reached a compromise, a compromise in which everyone can be a winner, since we are not playing a game in which the stake is zero. However, it is true that on the social side – and I think that neither Mr Fischler nor I have sought to conceal the fact – we have not made as much progress as we would have liked. Many of you have, quite rightly, said as much, and we shall have to keep working on it in other forums.
I should just like to say a word to those people whom I have heard criticising the development aspect. To be honest, I find it hard to understand their criticism, since the developing countries have been able to express themselves and make their voices count at this ministerial conference in conditions that they have never been able to obtain before, and I can say to this House that the Union played a part here, and if the developing countries were able to obtain a place at the conference table – both during the conference itself and during the preparations for it – which is much better than it has been before, it was to some extent the result of the efforts that the Union had been making in various places.
As a result, we shall be tested during the next round of negotiations, on our capacity to remain faithful to this viewpoint, particularly when it comes to adapting our programmes of technical assistance for development to fit the ambitious negotiation programme which has been decided on. We shall have plenty of opportunity to verify it with our African friends during the phasing-in period after Cotonou and the WTO negotiations.
In reply to the question about the order in which things will happen, I can say that the real negotiations, particularly at technical level, will start at the beginning of next year. I would suggest that we stick to our usual successful working methods, in other words, as things develop, continuing in what I believe to be more or less complete transparency, we should keep one another informed about developments in our mutual positions, and in particular about the Union’s negotiating position."@en1
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