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 EC’s 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

14-10-2009 Patent demands of EU also a farmers and Greens concern

MEP Carl Schlyter (Verts/ALE) has written a question to the Commission in which he explains the issues with patents on seeds and hybrid plants that can negatively affect biodiversity. They are also a direct concern to small farmers, such as in Latin America, that use and trade these (traditional) seeds and now face limited access in an increasingly monopolised seed market.

Schlyter asks the Commission why they have not taken such criticisms into account when negotiating trade deals with Latin American countries and how they aim to ensure biological diversity is promoted rather than restrained. For raising this relevant, yet often overlooked, issue in the context of Intellectual Property Rights, TRIPs and bilateral trade negotiations the EU is undertaking, we monitor Carl Schlyter as Fair Politician.

Monitor fair: Greens/EFA


Parliamentary questions
14 October 2009 
E-4938/09
WRITTEN QUESTION by Carl Schlyter (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

Subject: Negotiations between the EU, Central America and the Andean countries concerning patents

Patents on seeds and hybrid plants have provoked strong criticism in those Latin American countries which have introduced legislation in accordance with the 1995 TRIPS agreement. In Argentina and Brazil, a small number of foreign seed companies have taken over the local seed market for most plants and, in doing so, have severely undermined the system based on small farmers' free trade in plant varieties and seeds.

Traditional Latin American agriculture is a living seed bank which, over the years, has been able to preserve a great variety of crops. However, small farmers from various Latin American countries now report that their crops are fertilised by plants with a patent-protected property, which forces them to pay for patents and prevents traditional agriculture because the reproduction, sale or exchange of patented seed is simply not legal without the authorisation of the seed company. Traditional agriculture has therefore ceased, biological diversity has been restrained rather than promoted and the remaining seeds for sowing are restricted to a small number of companies which control an increasingly monopolised seed market. This situation poses a threat to small farmers' rights to food and a living.

According to Latin American trade unions and organisations including Terra de Direitos, which specialises in the social implications of patents on microbiological processes, genes and plant varieties patenting has had devastating consequences for biological diversity in several Latin American countries.

To my knowledge, neither the patent rules proposed in the association agreement between the EU and Central America nor the bilateral trade negotiations taking place between the EU and Colombia and Peru respectively have taken account of such criticism, which gives rise to the following questions.

What steps does the Commission take in negotiations on patents to promote biological diversity rather than restrain it?

Is the Commission negotiating to extend the patent period for new genes and microbiological processes?

What is the Commission's position on conflicts which have been caused when individuals have involuntarily had their crops fertilised by pollen from a patented plant?