Policy recommendations

  • In its trade and industrial policies, the EU should take account of its development and public health commitments. Possible impact on developing countries of actions in the trade and industry domains should be assessed thoroughly and impact studies of civil society should be taken into account in a serious manner. The current belief in IPR as a tool for development and the policy coherence in this field should be reassessed objectively and discussed with civil society in a transparent manner.
  • The European Union should refrain from pursuing the inclusion of TRIPS+, WTO+ and even EU+ provisions designed to protect intellectual property rights in any bilateral or multilateral trade agreements with developing countries (including those not defined as LDCs).
  • The EU should not limit, and instead encourage, the efforts of developing countries to use (TRIPS) flexibilities as a public health strategy. In addition it should lobby for the compulsory licence for developing countries without production facilities to be made valid for all similar countries at once (including non-LDC developing countries) and (considering the limits) for other initiatives to be developed, such as patent pools. The EU should actively stand up to European pharmaceutical companies that try to limit the use of compulsory licensing in developing countries.
  • The EU should ensure its interests in enforcement and developments in ACTA will not hamper trade in generic medicine or lead to any more seizures of these. In particular it should not demand adoption of current EU or EU+ enforcement rules, such as border measures, to be introduced in developing countries. 
  • The European Parliament should adopt a Resolution on these recommendations with a view to affirming the ECs commitments to Health and Development, as well as demand  its right of access to all negotiation documents (such as ACTA) and the use of co-decision power to prevent the EU from pursuing agreements that can damage public health.

 

Case: TRIPs & Access to Medicines

21-09-2009 Is the battle in the EU-Andean process over?

Today is the start of what is likely to be the last negotiation round for a free trade agreement between the EU and the Andean countries of Peru and Colombia. What started off two years ago as a region-to-region partnership agreement including a political and a development cooperation pillar, has been reduced to a bilateral commercial agreement.

Not entirely strange, civil society from both regions have been critical of the course this process has taken, as well as specific items that are expected to be included into the agreement.

As Peruvian social organisations such as Red-Ge and AIS state in the press, they fear that their government will give in to Europe’s pressure for extension of patent-related rights on medicine and medicinal plants [1]. This could severely affect local access to essential medicine and endanger the large biodiversity present and is therefore often mentioned as an unfair and incoherent EU policy.

In February 2009 EVF and HAI organised an expert meeting on the topic of Intellectual Property Rights that led to a strong debate and finally even some promises by the European Commission not to endanger health. Only time will tell us whether these are kept!

While it is expected that the EU manages to close the deal with Peru and Colombia - that have shown very eager to sign - this week, social organizations from both continents come together in a parallel protest meeting on Wednesday. It will be interesting to see how both processes evolve and of course Fair Politics will keep you informed!

 

[1] See http://www.redge.org.pe/

 

29-09-2009 Some successes of the health alliance in IPR!

It seems that the big fuzz created by civil society from Europe, but even more from the Andean countries, has been succesful in convincing the Peruvian and Colombian government not to accept extension of patents and data protection that was predicted to have disastrous results for prices of and access to medicines.

Despite the fact that negotiations have not finished, a large part of the clauses, including most of those on Intellectual Property Rights is said to have been agreed on. This includes an agreement of all parties on patents and data protection of medicine that do not go beyond TRIPs and the agreement these countries have with the US. Remaining issues are considered to be in the realm of biotechnologies that was added by the EU, as well as strict enforcement and border measures on IPR. The fear is that this will lead to the possibility of custum seizures of generic medicine in Peru and Colombia, as has often been the case in the EU, mainly in the Netherlands.

Fair Politics is happy to see that the EU will not fully get its way in this IPR chapter, but is concerned about similar extreme IPR demands by the EU in other trade negotiations, such as with Central America. We will therefore keep monitoring such developments.