Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-30-Speech-3-180"
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"en.20051130.16.3-180"2
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".
Mr President, many of the people who die every day in developing countries could have been saved with medicines that are available to us all, but are too expensive for them.
Developing medicines costs money. The average cost involved in bringing a medicine onto the market varies from around EUR 600 to EUR 900 million. Businesses are compensated for this via patent rights, and rightly so, but the effect is to make medicines expensive. The directive we are currently debating intends to ensure that people in the poorest countries can access the necessary medicines, namely that poor countries can, in special cases and under certain conditions, produce medicines at affordable prices, which is a good thing.
We must, however, prevent a situation in which it becomes unattractive for industries to develop medicines. That is why we must make every effort to ensure that the regulation cannot be abused, for example via re-imports to the EU. The regulation is aimed at promoting health and not trade. That is why we think that precise descriptions must be given of reasons underlying applications for the compulsory licence, of the patents in question, that the medicines in question should have a different appearance, colour and packaging, where possible, and that the level of production must be logged.
The TRIPs regulation on patents has been in place for some time. Whilst it has, to our knowledge, never been used, it is still important. It can help patent holders to find solutions for emergency situations in developing countries quickly and under excellent conditions. Needless to say, this regulation cannot totally eliminate all the problems surrounding medicines in developing countries. They also need a road network, refrigerated transport, sufficient medical staff, and suchlike. It does, however, represent a considerable addition to the aid in special emergency cases.
This compromise makes it possible to transpose into EU law the WTO Decision in respect of TRIPs. With the WTO Summit in Hong Kong on the horizon, this can send out a positive message, which will stand the EU in good stead, and so I should like to congratulate Mr Van Hecke on the result of negotiations with the Council and Commission. I am pleased that a compromise has been struck and I hope that Parliament will accept it tomorrow."@en1
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