Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-23-Speech-2-395"
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"en.20071023.28.2-395"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, during our last debate in July on access to medicines, I concluded my comments by calling on the Council and the Commission to make clear and formal commitments that would guarantee Europe’s active involvement in finding new solutions and its desire to be a front runner in the fight for access to affordable medicines for everyone. We could not be content with a debate in which no precise commitments were made, and I note today that, after several months of exchanges between the three institutions, certain proposals we had made and that we really wanted are becoming a reality.
First allow me to applaud the parliamentary work done, and done with a constant concern for accountability and openness. The three successive postponements of the vote in Parliament were motivated by a commitment to global public health. This showed us that the word ‘solidarity’ still had meaning in European policies.
I would therefore like to thank first of all our rapporteur Mr Susta for his powers of persuasion and capacity for resistance, and all the shadow rapporteurs from the political groups, who throughout these months of collaboration, effort and Common conviction, have risen above party politics to show the quality of work that Parliament can produce. I therefore hope that the Council and the Commission will be able to demonstrate that the commitments made over the last few months during our various exchanges and in the written statement we have received will be respected.
These commitments are: that the Member States are free to use all the clauses allowing them to produce generic medicines and export them to developing countries, and not only to poor developing countries; that these developing countries can use all the flexibilities in the Doha Declaration to provide their populations with the essential medicines they need; that the European Union will not negotiate public health-related provisions in negotiations on trade agreements – and I also note the statements by the Commissioner; and finally that the EU will finance projects to develop research and manufacturing capabilities in these countries.
These are positive steps forward, and we want to make capital of them now, but I would like nevertheless to say that not all the issues raised by Parliament, or its legitimate concerns, have necessarily met with the desired responses from the other institutions. Our fight for access to medicines for everyone in the world goes on. That is why we will remain extremely vigilant regarding the application of the commitments made by the Council and the Commission today, and at the same time we will continue to demand that all our concerns receive a rapid, adequate response in the coming months. I recall that the first of the commitments made to Parliament was to complete the evaluation of the mechanism that we are to adopt tomorrow. Doubts persist over this, and they need to be addressed. Should that not be the case, in line with the commitments made to the developing countries concerned, the EU should draw the appropriate conclusions to come up with a truly viable, sustainable solution.
I am therefore pleased about the commitments made by the Council and the Commission, and I will therefore call upon my group to vote in favour of ratification tomorrow, even though the long weeks of work we have just experienced lead me to think that, far from reaching an end, the collective agreement we have made is only just beginning."@en1
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