Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-07-02-Speech-2-231"
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"en.20020702.10.2-231"2
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".
The question is concerned with intellectual property rights and access to medicines. You know that the Doha Declaration on intellectual property rights and public health instructs the WTO Council for TRIPS to find an expeditious solution to the problems facing WTO member countries whose production capacity in the pharmaceuticals sector is insufficient or non-existent or who are experiencing difficulties in the effective use of compulsory licensing.
These poor countries have neither sufficient flexibility nor the capacity to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies located in the countries which are able to issue a compulsory licence. It is therefore perfectly possible that they will encounter more difficulties than other countries in benefiting from any sizeable reductions in the prices of essential medicines. We, for our part, believe that an expeditious solution is a solution that would enable the situation within the WTO to be resolved before the end of the year.
The WTO Council for TRIPS has held several meetings recently. In March, the Union submitted a communication proposing two courses of action. The first of these is based on the interpretation of Article 30 of the intellectual property agreement and the other is based on an amendment to Article 31. We were the only WTO member to propose a written document adopting a clear position. Other Members made oral proposals and four options were put forward: either to interpret Article 30, to amend Article 31, to declare a moratorium on the settling of disputes or, finally, to make provision for a system of derogations.
A further meeting of the Council for TRIPS took place last week and at that meeting we submitted a new document, based on our reflections and on our examination of proposals from various quarters, suggesting an amendment to Article 31. We propose that a new paragraph be added to that article, establishing a clearly defined exception to the restriction laid down by Article 31 in the area of the granting of export licences for pharmaceutical products manufactured under compulsory licence.
We believe that, as things stand at present, Article 30, which is an alternative, only authorises overly limited exceptions to the rights attached to exclusive licences, and that the solution we envisaged at Doha goes further than the limits laid down by Article 30. Moreover, we must take into account the positions of our partners, and propose a solution that we think will ultimately be acceptable to most of the members of the WTO. With this in mind, an amendment to Article 31 would have better prospects than a clarification of Article 30, in so far as no member of the WTO has ruled out the possibility of amending Article 31, whereas some members, and not the least important ones, are firmly opposed to any clarification of Article 30. The developing countries in question, which are our main concern, have indicated that they would be willing to look at the amendment to Article 31 that we have proposed.
In fact, we believe that adding a provision to this agreement on intellectual property would provide a clear, legally reliable and permanent solution that would not disrupt the current regulatory framework, i.e. that of Article 31. This agreement, reworded in the way we are proposing, would clearly specify that a country that is unable to produce a medicine may ask another country to grant it a licence for export purposes. This proposal seems to us to be the most simple and, ultimately, the most likely to resolve the problem raised in the Doha Declaration which has forced us to seek a solution to this issue. That is our position. Other views are being expressed in Geneva and we shall continue, in the spirit in which we have acted so far, to try to find a solution that will reconcile the major principles of intellectual property, on the one hand, with the possibility, on the other, of enabling the poorest countries to have access to the medicines which are absolutely essential to them."@en1
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