Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-10-Speech-1-090"

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"Mr President, when the United States recently faced the threat of an anthrax attack, the authorities needed adequate and cheap supplies of medicine to treat the illness. They therefore took it upon themselves to oblige the pharmaceutical laboratory concerned to provide the medicines more cheaply. Had the laboratory refused to do this, the United States authorities would have resorted to a compulsory licence. I would remind you that, at that time, no one required the United States to consult the World Health Organisation first to check if anthrax was on the list of diseases deemed to be admissible in this case. The United States was not required to negotiate the conditions for the potential production of such a generic medicine. Why then are certain developing countries now being required to do so? I will now move on to my second point. I believe Mr Clegg was right to cite the Doha declaration. I think my fellow Members were right to remind us that an undertaking was implemented and that this undertaking should be respected. According to the undertaking nothing in the interpretation of the agreements on intellectual property should prevent developing countries and WTO member countries from tackling their public health needs, whether or not they have the capacity to produce medicines. These countries should therefore be allowed to make their own decisions on this. Those with the capacity to produce medicines should be able to decide the circumstances in which they might need to resort to compulsory licences. Those without the capacity to produce medicines should be able to decide the circumstances in which they might need to resort to parallel imports. These imports would be legal, as they would be sanctioned by the state. Mr Rod and Mr Wijkman are therefore right, as are others like Mr Van den Berg, when they say that we would be imposing on the poorest countries conditions which do not apply to industrialised countries or to developing countries with the capacity to produce medicines. I think we are now faced with the difficult task of finding a simple and effective solution to the problem. Any solution must not entail long and costly negotiations and procedures. The latter would eventually cost the lives of millions of sick people who would die without access to treatment. We heard that our fellow Member, Mr Tannock, is more concerned about the possible fall in the profits of certain industries than the fate of the sick. Mr Lamy, you are clearly under pressure from certain quarters, including the European industries. I urge you not to give way to these pressures! Please speak for the people of Europe. The people want us to help the sick in developing countries."@en1

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