Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-10-Speech-1-085"
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"en.20030210.8.1-085"2
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"Mr President, in the multilateral spirit of world solidarity and the global coalition against international terrorism immediately post 11 September, we in Europe, under the inspiring leadership of Commissioner Pascal Lamy, have gone all out to build bridges, to win the USA over and to make Doha a successful development round.
Ultimately the deciding factor turned out to be developing countries’ access to cheap medicines without paying for patents, either by their own production or by importing them. Ultimately the political breakthrough came. All developing countries can now establish when they are having a serious health crisis or problem and nothing is preventing them, not even the TRIPs agreement, from buying or producing cheap medicines. That applies to all developing countries and all medicines. There are no restrictions, and no external prior approval is needed.
The assignment was to round this off in a legally conclusive text. This should have been done in December 2002, but it failed because the USA, in my opinion, was no longer adopting a multilateral position. I believe President Bush trampled all over the Doha agreement in favour of his own pharmaceutical industry. Commissioner Lamy, you have always told us that you are negotiating on behalf of the whole of Europe and that you accept the European Parliament as possessing powers of democratic control and codecision.
Well, this is an important point for the Group of the Party of European Socialists – and, when I listen to my fellow-Members, for many other groups too. We should like to say that you enjoy our full support, but we do not wish to bow under pressure from the USA any further. So: this far and no further. We want no restrictions on countries, no restrictions on the types of medicines, nor any prior approval by an external authority. That is naturally a little different from the advice from the WHO. We do support stringent measures to protect our own European market against dumping, however.
With more than 90% of AIDS patients in developing countries, we want Europe to unambiguously decide which side it is on and to strictly limit itself to a solution in line with the political Doha agreement.
We urge other groups in this Parliament to vote accordingly. The interests of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria patients worldwide must be at centre stage. Not commerce. Necessity knows no law. The TRIPS agreements must not be a limiting factor. As the PSE Group we are convinced that if this point fails, Doha will be keelhauled and Cancun will have failed before it even starts. Then there will be no development round! And that is the last thing that the world will permit in the current, very serious crisis.
That is why we are taking this clear stance. Having heard my fellow-Members Mr Wijkman, Mr Clegg and Mrs McNally and many others, I think that Parliament is on the point of making a clear judgment and giving Commissioner Lamy, who, as he has understood, enjoys our full support, a powerful mandate."@en1
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