Europees Parlement stelt besluit over TRIPS uit (en)

The International Trade Committee on Wednesday postponed its vote on granting Parliament's assent to an amendment of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Parliament has made its assent conditional upon a number of undertakings from the Council when developing countries use the flexibility provided for under the TRIPS agreement to produce or import generic substitute drugs for patented medicines.

"We must sort out the issue of flexibilities in a joint declaration of the EP and Council", said rapporteur Gianluca Susta (ALDE, IT), speaking on behalf of all the political groups. The Portuguese Presidency has not responded to the demands made by MEPs in a resolution adopted on 12 July in Strasbourg.

Parliament's conditions

In that resolution, the EP called on the Council to state, in a joint political declaration, that the Member States are free to use the exception provision of the TRIPS Agreement to authorise production and export "to address public health needs in importing Members". 

For MEPs, the mechanism created by the Doha declaration and set in place in 2003 is only a "part of the solution to the problem". So far only Rwanda has stated (on 19 July) its intention to using compulsory licensing as an importer.

Economic partnership agreements

Parliament also urges the Council to restrict the Commission's mandate to ensure it does not negotiate pharmaceutical-related TRIPS-plus provisions affecting public health and access to medicines in the Economic Partnership Agreements with the ACP countries and other future bilateral and regional agreements with poor developing countries.

Doha declaration

This mechanism was set in train by the Doha declaration adopted at the WTO ministerial conference in November 2001. It was then confirmed by a decision of the WTO general council on 30 August 2003 which authorised countries with insufficient or no manufacturing capacity in the pharmaceutical sector to make use of compulsory licensing and import generic versions of drugs still under patent.

Ratification

As soon as two thirds of the members of the WTO (100 of its 151 member states) have formally accepted the amendment, it applies to those states which have accepted it and replaces the 2003 derogation. As at 31 August, nine countries had accepted the amendment: El Salvador, the United States, India, Israel, Japan, Norway, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea and Switzerland.