In his question addressed to the Commission, Martin asked whether the IPR provisions added to the EPA are consistent with an European Parliament resolution which notes that bilateral trade agreements should not seek to incorporate TRIPs-plus protection in ways that may reduce access to medicines in developing countries.

Our case study: “TRIPs and medicines” addresses the topic of the trade-related Intellectual Property Rights and their effect on the access to affordable medicines for people in developing countries.  The TRIPs have been negotiated at the end of the WTO Uruguay round in 1994, and were established to set down a minimum standard for many forms of intellectual property regulation. Under TRIPs, member nations of the WTO agreed to provide common standards for protection of all intellectual property applying to all technologies in products and processes, with the aim to enhance innovation through research and development, which would be stimulated by the extra money to become available from for example patents. The TRIPs agreement has a serious negative impact on developing countries, especially within the health care system, as it causes the prices of medicines to rise or remain higher for a longer amount of time.

The TRIPs have resulted in decreased access to medicines in many developing countries and have therefore been the subject of a heated debate for over a decade. Finally, during the WTO Doha round, flexibility clauses were added in order to allow for measures to protect the public health within a developing country to be applied under the strict circumstances of national emergency and matters of extreme urgency. Nevertheless currently the EU is including TRIPs plus standards (TRIPs with stricter provisions) in all kinds of trade agreements with third countries.

The issue described above shows a clear incoherence between the EU’s Development policy and its policy towards the EU’s pharmaceutical domain, within its Trade policy.  In its Health and Development Policies, the EU prioritizes access to essential medicines in developing countries. In the pharmaceutical domain, however, the European Union actively promotes the interests of its industry at the expense of poor people’s access to existing essential medicines. Patents on medicines do not stimulate research into the so-called neglected diseases, diseases that affect mainly the poor. Moreover, how can one, on the one hand, spend money on building infrastructure for health care facilities in the developing countries while, on the other hand, one also allows for regulations such as the TRIPs to make these same facilities to a large extent redundant?

The EU Coherence Programme monitors the efforts made by MEPs to address Policy Coherence for Development in their daily work. The question posted by MEP David Martin addresses a clear incoherence, and therefore David Martin is granted a coherence star.  The exact question posted towards the Commission can be read below.

Besides the EPAs, which are being negotiated between the EU and the ACP countries, there are currently also negotiations taking place between the European Union and the Andean Community (CAN). These negotiations will eventually lead to the conclusion of an Association Agreement (AA) between the two regions. The trade section of this AA will, just like the EPA, includes a chapter on Intellectual Property Rights.

Impact studies carried out in Columbia on the basis of similar demands on IPRs by the USA, showed that the prices of medicines would increase by at least 46% and the annual public health expenditures would be likely to increase to 1 billion dollars by 2020. Without enough money to cover these costs, more than five million Colombians with poor resources would lose access to essential medicines. This could affect as many as 12,000 HIV/AIDS patients by 2020, who could see their life expectancy be reduced by between 5.3 and 9.9 years. Health Action International Europe is currently in the process of researching a similar impact study to provide vital feedback on the impact of the IP clauses in the EU-CAN association agreement. When such impact figures have been gathered a new case study by the EU Coherence Programme in cooperation with Health Action International will be developed in order to show the EU institutions that in this case, unfortunately, their policies in the field of trade-related intellectual property rights are incoherent with the EU’s own development policies.

The full questions of Mr. David Martin can be read below

By:  David Martin

To the Commission

Subject: CARIFORUM EPA and TRIPs follow up

Date: 23 September, 2008.

Subject: Cariforum EPA — TRIPs follow-up             E-5044/08

Can the Commission explain how the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) plus provisions (such as those in Article 141.1 and 141.2 of the Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and Cariforum) are consistent with the European Parliament resolution P6_TA(2007)0353⁽¹⁾ of 12 July, 2007, the recommendations of the World Health Organisation’s Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health, 2006 (which noted that bilateral trade agreements should not seek to incorporate TRIPS-plus protection in ways that may reduce access to medicines in developing countries) and the British Government’s Commission on Intellectual Property Rights (which recommended that ‘developed countries should discontinue the practice of using regional/bilateral agreements as a means of creating TRIPS-plus Intellectual Property (IP) regimes in developing countries as a matter of course’ and that developed countries should ensure that they do not impose TRIPS plus standards on developing countries)?

This is especially relevant given that the UK Government’s response was that ‘We also concur that bilateral and other agreements should not, as a matter of course, oblige countries to adopt intellectual property standards or timetables that go beyond TRIPS. For our part, we will seek to ensure that EU agreements with developing countries avoid imposing obligations beyond TRIPS’⁽²⁾.

Visit the website of MEP David Martin

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For more information on the TRIPs see our case study on TRIPs and Medicines