E-DRUG: Press release- EU negotiators are trading away Access to Medicines in Andean countries
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Press release : Health Action International (Europe), Knowledge Ecology
International and Oxfam International
EU negotiators are trading away Access to Medicines in Andean countries
20 July 2009
This week the concluding rounds of the trade negotiations between the
European Union and Peru and Colombia will take place in Lima, Peru. The
CAN-EU Alliance of European and Andean civil society organisations is
calling on the EU to abandon all TRIPS plus demands in order to protect
access to medicines for the Andean populations.
[Intellectual Property Rights, Bilateral Agreements and Public Health
The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS), concluded in 1994 at the WTO, contains strong IP regulation.
Nonetheless, this multilateral agreement also recognises public health
needs and allows certain policy space for developing countries to
protect public health (through the so-called "TRIPS flexibilities").
However, bilateral trade agreements negotiated by the US and the EU are
frequently used to set higher standards of IP protection, ignoring
progress made in multilateral forums. TRIPS plus and TRIPS extra
standards consolidate and extend monopolies for brand name
pharmaceuticals, protecting high prices and profit margins at the
expense of access to medicines.]
Impact studies have shown that the EU's proposals on intellectual
property will harm public health, potentially affecting access to
medicines for up to 5 million people in Colombia and 6 million in
Peru.[i] The EU's own trade sustainability impact study,[ii] presented
on 16 July, also recognises that the IP proposals put forward by EU
negotiators would negatively affect public health for the Andean
populations.
In light of the controversies surrounding the unrelenting demands of IP
rights holders, there is an emerging consensus that the current system
is not working for poor people in developing countries, prompting
Venezuela to challenge the patent system for medicines. New ideas for
incentive systems and technology sharing such as, patent pooling, are
paving the way for medicines' policies that prioritise access to
affordable essential medicines. In his recent speech at the WIPO
conference, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Pascal
Lamy emphasised the need for an IP system that benefits everyone and not
only rights holders.[iii] Even within Europe, alleged misuses of the IP
system have been linked to delays in generic competition and access to
affordable medicines, according to the DG Competition inquiry.
In spite of this, the EU trade negotiators remain staunchly in favour of
expanding the IP system, and the rights and profits of the IP holders at
the expense of Access to Medicines for millions of people.
The European proposal on the Enforcement of IP rights transforms the
responsibilities in the TRIPS provisions. From stipulating only the
outcomes, which allowed room for manoeuvre according to national law,
the EU's proposals seek to specify the entire architecture of
enforcement in minute detail. The cost of implementing such measures
would represent a huge burden on the governments of Peru and Colombia.
Moreover, such intractable enforcement measures could potentially deter
legitimate trade in low-cost generic medicines, as demonstrated by the
recent seizures of in-transit medicines in the Netherlands and
Germany.[iv] The CAN-EU Alliance calls upon the EU not to go beyond
TRIPS, and abandon all TRIPS plus provisions in the final agreements.
"Let's hope that the push to close the negotiations this week does not
marginalise the progressive proposals from the Colombian and Peruvian
negotiators that aim to safeguard public health and allow room for
competition from low-cost generics." Sophie Bloemen, Health Action
International.
For more information about this campaign, please contact Project
Officer, Sophie Bloemen: sophie@haiweb.org or +31 20 683 3684.