Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-05-Speech-2-074"
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"en.19991005.4.2-074"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in Africa over two million people die every year, four million people become infected and we know that 70% of new HIV-positive people are in Africa. This is obviously a pandemic that is the primary cause of death for a citizen in an African country. This is far-reaching and of unprecedented seriousness owing to the way this illness is affecting, in particular, a continent which the European Union has special relations and links with. But in recent years, I think these have slackened and have completely missed the mark. I am referring, obviously, to the Lomé Convention, to this partnership pact that is a bit exclusive, a bit special, and that we have always described as the European Union’s response to the former colonies, as well as to other areas, but which mainly addresses the African continent. And the response, as Mr Wurtz and other speakers stated, was a bureaucratic response to initially reduce the expenditure linked to the budget as regards investment in the AIDS sector. Clearly, the response should be political, which it was not. We are undoubtedly dealing with this illness a bit differently, according to whether it is in this part or in the other part of the hemisphere.
Next week, when we meet our African partners in the ACP Parliamentary Assembly – European Union meeting, we must bear in mind that, while Lusaka was a failure, in part this is definitely down to the fact that we did not pay enough attention to this matter, along with other matters. We should therefore organise a large conference on AIDS, but not leave it only to those countries that must then deal with such terrible consequences in practice, but a conference that we have wanted for years, since 1993, on pandemics and AIDS. With us there to oversee things, we could meet this situation head on and finally agree on measures that are appropriate for an international authority, given that in this regard the WHO is completely incapable of offering specific responses.
I think this would be a wise and sensible measure, a measure which, up till now, we certainly have not taken. I hope that this will head our agenda next week in the context of the ACP and that it will become, Commissioner, a proposal that the Commission and the European Union will themselves make, so that we can finally approach this matter in a serious way."@en1
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