Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-24-Speech-2-061"
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"en.20070424.5.2-061"2
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".
Mr President, honourable Members, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you here today, and Mr Andrejevs, too, for presenting his report, which makes it plain that HIV/AIDS remains a dangerous illness, which, although we often – and rightly – think of it as associated with Africa, is also an issue for our own continent of Europe.
In parts of our continent, infection is now spreading more rapidly than in other parts of the world, and it is, alas, on the increase in all the Member States of the European Union. We must, then, make this issue our own, for HIV/AIDS is more than a health problem; it also has to do with economic and social development in the states affected by it.
I am very glad, then, that we succeeded in getting over 41 European states, including some of our neighbours, represented by ministers or their deputies at the Bremen conference, that we were able to highlight the importance of the alliance between government and civil society in the fight against HIV/AIDS and that it was also made plain that HIV/AIDS has to be seen as the big issue. I am very grateful to the German Federal Chancellor for her clear statement and also for the fact that the results of this conference and its conclusions will be on the agenda not only of the Health Ministers’ Council, but also of the summit in June.
The main thing that the Bremen declaration did was to set out, in four core points and in clear terms, where our priorities have to be, and they coincide to a very large degree with what you have set out in your report and in its reasoning.
All our strategies must give priority to prevention, for neither medicines nor vaccinations are available to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
It is absolutely vital that the human rights of persons who have contracted the illness should be recognised, respected and promoted, and that includes their right to be protected from discrimination and against being stigmatised.
General access to diagnosis and treatment must be guaranteed; the question has just been raised as to whether we can negotiate prices for medicines. One advance achieved by Bremen is that the pharmaceutical industry has made it clear that good provision necessarily involves affordable medicines, and has indicated its willingness to join with the Commission, your House and the Member States in finding a way in which each Member State can, by negotiating prices, ensure access to affordable treatment and injections. Now, that is progress.
There must also be a renewed and greater commitment to research and development, with better interlinking of facilities in Europe, and more investment in vaccinations and microbicides.
I do believe that this conference has enabled us to make some headway, and would be delighted if our Member States, together with Parliament and the Commission, were to put this issue at the top of the agenda, thus making the point that AIDS is an issue for all of us. It is not just a problem for our neighbour states, but a problem for Europe; it has a great deal to do with our social and economic development, no less than it does with our success or failure in giving the public added value."@en1
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