[Ip-health] The European Parliament's actions on Access to medicines-TRIPS.

[Alexandra HEUMBER]

This is a multipart message in MIME format.
--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
Short update on the European Parliament's actions on Access to
medicines-TRIPS.

The Members of the European Parliament in International Trade Committee
voted this morning for the delay of the ratification of the TRIPS
amendment making permanent the WTO August 2003 mechanism (Compulsory
licence for export), since the European Commission and Council have not
committed enough to adopt a strong and pro-active policy regarding the use
of the FULL flexibilities of TRIPS as recalled by the Doha Declaration on
Public Health and TRIPS and also they do not take enough in consideration
the concerns and the requests of the European Parliament.

This decision has been decided by all political groups - apart from the
European People Party (Christian democrats and European Democrats) - to
allow a trialogue between the EC, Council and EP that will take place on
17 October based on the EP 's request (Resolution July 12,  point 10-
below), since the letter sent by the EU Presidency to the EP yesterday
(quite short delay according to some MEPs to give them time to meet and to
decide) is still insufficient according to what the EP requested on point
10 of the resolution. The presidency notably ignored in the letter the
second part of the request (in bold below) said the MEPs.

"10.  Calls on the Council to adopt a Joint Policy Statement with
Parliament to the effect that the Member States remain free to use all
exceptions from the TRIPS Agreement under their domestic patent laws to
authorise production and export "to address public health needs in
importing Members" and asks the Council to ensure that the Commission
refrains from taking action to interfere with these proceedings".
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=3D-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA=
-2007-0353+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN

The vote for the ratification is planned to take place on October 22nd,
hopefuly by then the EP will get a commitment, strong enough, from the EC
and Council  to  pro-actively support the full use of the Doha Declaration
on Public Health and TRIPS - Paragraph 4 and 5- , and not only the August
2003 mechanism (paragraph 6 of the Doha declaration).

Best regards,
Alexandra


Alexandra Heumber
EU Advocacy Liaison Officer
M=E9decins Sans Fronti=E8res
Access to Essential Medicines Campaign
Rue Dupr=E9, 94. 1090 Brussels
++32 (0) 2 474 75 09 (Dir off)
++ 32 (0) 479 514 900 (Mob)
++ 32 (0) 2 474 75 75 (Fax)