Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-07-05-Speech-3-375"
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".
(
) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad to be addressing you today at this final plenary before the summer break.
We are of course involved in an ongoing political dialogue with our partners regarding the use of these funds. This dialogue also aims at encouraging them to implement an integrated approach – I mean, in particular, by including questions regarding human rights and good governance. I also mean gender equality, as well as discrimination and acts of violence against women, and access to education for girls.
In addition to these efforts through the Global Fund and through bilateral action, the Commission is actively participating in international forums for dealing with poverty-related illnesses – I am thinking in particular here of the World Trade Organisation, of the United Nations General Assembly special session on HIV/AIDS, of the G8, and of conferences like the one in Toronto as well.
The Commission has played a decisive role in making sure that on these occasions the European Union speaks with a united voice on this question. Moreover, the Commission has also been engaged for several years in a dialogue with the pharmaceutical industry in order to speak in favour of making medication available to developing countries at lower prices. This dialogue has borne fruit: the introduction of a graded price scale has enabled the price of certain medicines to be reduced by 95%. This system allows developing countries to pay prices in accordance with their means, while at the same time protecting the businesses that produce these medicines from the risk of seeing their products imported back into the very lucrative markets of the developed countries. In 1999, a complete antiviral HIV treatment cost USD 10 000. Today it costs USD 200.
We are engaged in research ourselves, in cooperation with industry and with the research centres of Member States, and our efforts are in particular directed towards finding microbicides and vaccines. We have also launched a partnership to coordinate the research programmes of Member States in order to accelerate clinical testing and thereby to ensure that medications may be put onto the market more rapidly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must go further in our fight against HIV/AIDS, in order to be able to provide preventative measures and treatment to all those who need them by 2010. In this respect, we are following – with great interest – the implementation of innovative funding mechanisms by certain Member States, in particular the tax on aeroplane tickets. We are also glad to see increasing contributions from private foundations, such as the Bill Gates Foundation, to the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
The creativity of these solutions, as well as the increasing involvement of the private sector, give me cause to hope. This reflects a realisation – that is increasingly being transformed into action – of the threat represented by HIV/AIDS and of the need to respond to it in a proactive way in order to preserve our common future. We must not relax our vigilance, and we must continue our work without respite. We can attain our ultimate goal, which is to provide care to all those who need it and to see future generations grow up without the fear of AIDS.
I am delighted to be able to continue to collaborate with the European Parliament in order to turn this objective into reality. Thank you for your attention.
This will also be our last meeting before the International AIDS Conference which will take place in August in Toronto. As you know, Toronto will offer the Commission a first rate platform to express its vision for dealing with the scourge of HIV/AIDS.
The European Commission obviously remains very concerned about the problem of HIV/AIDS. Despite our efforts, this scourge continues to spread throughout the world. It now affects tens of millions of people, infecting more and more girls and young women. The countries most affected are still the poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa, where the rate of infection is not falling and where the disease continues to undermine any prospect of human, social and economic development worthy of the name.
Faced with this tragedy, the European Commission is more determined than ever to vigorously support its partners in Africa and elsewhere. Our goal is to give them the tools to fight this pandemic by combining prevention, treatment and care in an effective manner. However, in addition to these measures we remain convinced that HIV/AIDS cannot be treated in isolation.
First of all, the fight against HIV/AIDS cannot be dissociated from the fight against other diseases that are also linked to poverty, notably malaria and tuberculosis. Furthermore, HIV/AIDS brutally exposes all the biggest challenges for development: limited access to social services, exaggerated inequalities – whether social or between men and women – bad government and corruption, as well as the persistently extremely low level of economic and technological development. In a word, the blatant inadequacy of the state with respect to essential governmental functions.
The only way that HIV/AIDS can be combated successfully is if the leaders of developing countries address all these problems at the same time. This integrated approach to HIV/AIDS is the principal driving force for the Community’s action, and it also forms the basis of our approach in concert with the Member States, and also with our other partners at the heart of the international community.
The main financial instrument to which the Commission has recourse is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which devotes around 57% of its resources to the fight against HIV/AIDS. We favour the use of this Global Fund because at the moment it is the most rapid and effective means to provide aid that can be allocated by the beneficiary countries in an integrated way.
As you are aware, the Commission plays a key role in administering this Fund; it has, effectively, a sort of Vice-Presidency. Since the creation of the Global Fund at the end of 2001, the Commission has contributed up to EUR 522 million, or 11% of the total contributions. If we include the contributions of the Member States of the European Union, then we are obviously, by far, the principal backer of this Fund, providing around 60% of the total Fund. I should also say that a few months ago I participated in the replenishment of this Fund in London, and I will not conceal the fact that we were fairly disappointed that participants were somewhat lukewarm, even reserved, about replenishing the Fund. We are a long way from the objective that we set ourselves, and therefore great efforts must be made to mobilise donors.
Thus we are implementing a series of financial support measures, projects and programmes. Among these measures we are giving precedence to general budgetary support. This approach is in accordance with our priority, which is to let our partners take control of their own policy and thus their own destiny. In line with this stance, the Commission has committed EUR 2.4 billion since 2002 to the general budget for Africa alone, where the impact of HIV/AIDS is by far the most serious."@en1
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