Open Letter to European Commission: The UN High Level Meeting on HIV & AIDS and Universal Access to HIV Treatment
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01.06.2011

If the progress made in the last ten years is not to be lost but to be strengthened we need the European Union to commit to a target of 15 million people on ARV treatment by the end of 2015. Instead, however, the European Union Bloc is aggressively promoting changes to the draft declaration that substantially weaken the global HIV response in a number of key areas:

TREATMENT TARGETS: 15 BY 15: A key feature of the global action on AIDS has been the setting of specific targets. It was WHO’s 3 by 5 call (to put 3 million people on treatment by 2005) that electrified HIV treatment scale-up. Yet for the 2011 HLM, the EU is reluctant to sign on to any targets for getting people on treatment. Thailand has proposed the figure of 15 million people living with HIV to be on treatment by 2015 representing 80% of people who will be in need of treatment The reluctance by the EU to set an ambitious treatment target is surprising given the confirmation by recent studies of a nearly 96% reduction in HIV transmission between sero-discordant couples if the HIV-positive partner was on treatment before their health declined.

Zero Draft paragraph for immediate action

PARA 48: is where several countries have identified the target of having at least 80% of people living with HIV who need treatment or 15 million to be on treatment by 2015. The EU must immediately agree to and support these specific treatment targets.

UNIVERSAL ACCESS: NO TRADE BARRIERS, NO MORE “BLACKMAIL”: Over 5 million people living with HIV in the developing world are now on treatment. 80% of them survive on generic ARVs. Since the 2001 UNGASS Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, the manufacture, supply, export and import of generic ARVs has been at the heart of HIV treatment scale-up in the South. In 2004, at the Bangkok AIDS conference, the French President called the pressure on developing countries to give up their rights to ensure access to safe, effective and affordable generic medicines in exchange for free trade agreements “immoral blackmail.” Over the past three years we have been calling on the EU to stop this same immoral blackmail in its Free Trade Agreement negotiations with India and several other developing countries. That the EU is blocking or weakening language in the UN declaration supportive of countries’ rights to provide access to medicines, use TRIPS flexibilities and reject trade agreements with TRIPS-plus measures is bad enough; it is actually also inserting text pushing its own intellectual property agenda. These actions of the European Union only strengthen our concern over ongoing EU FTA negotiations.

Zero Draft paragraphs for immediate action: EU must withdraw all its proposals to weaken or reject language related to IP and trade barriers

PARA 20 – In the article on research, US, EU and Japan have put in language on “the importance of intellectual property protection in developing new medicines” and “as well as the importance of intellectual property rights and their progressive use as an incentive for investment in research and development of newer generation of treatments”. We oppose this attempt at placing intellectual property rights as a driver of access to treatment when everything in the history of the AIDS epidemic shows otherwise. Indeed market driven models based on IP can also be the key reason why pediatric dosages and other innovations such as fixed dose combinations, affordable and effective TB tests and TB treatment cannot be developed for the needs of patients in developing countries

PARA 21 & 21BIS – Expresses grave concern that greater enforcement of medicine patents in middle & low-income countries significantly limits generic competition for newer generations of HIV treatments & further notes that the future of HIV treatment programs may be put at risk mainly due to trade barriers, regulations, policies and practices as well as bilateral and regional trade agreements that impose intellectual property protections stricter than necessary under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. The European Union along with the US, Japan and Switzerland want these paragraphs deleted.
PARA 52 – Calls for a commitment, that before 2015 obstacles which limit the capacity of middle- and low-income countries to provide affordable HIV treatment be removed, including by amending national laws to optimize full use of using existing flexibilities under the TRIPS Agreement and to address trade barriers that prevent access to affordable HIV treatment, regulations, policies and practices, as well as trade agreements that impose intellectual property protections stricter than necessary under the TRIPS agreement by ensuring that they do not contain TRIPS-plus provisions. Japan wants this whole paragraph deleted. While the EU and the US want this language to be considerably weaker and for specific provisions on ensuring that trade agreements do not undermine flexibilities to be deleted.

FUND THE FUND: NO EXCUSES, NO DELAYS: The UN zero draft recognizes that there is a growing funding gap for prevention, care, treatment and support programmes related to HIV and calls on governments, particularly in the developed world to fulfil their commitments on HIV funding. The EU’s proposals in the funding paragraphs indicate an unwillingness to make any specific commitments and particularly related to the Global Fund seem to be contingent on some sort of “reform” process. As is well known the discussion on “reform” of the GFATM is based on a misrepresentation of recent events where the Global Fund itself has publicised the effectiveness of its anti-corruption mechanisms which have unearthed and addressed corruption in Global Fund disbursements.

Zero Draft paragraphs for immediate action:
PARAS 67 to 71: The EU proposals in these paras shows an unwillingness to be bound to specific funding commitments at a time when the funding crisis is threatening the future of the global action plan on HIV.

PARA 72 – the last line of para 72 as proposed by the EU makes Global Fund replenishment dependent on “reform” while the rest of para 72 features deletions from the EU, US and Switzerland on any commitment to fully replenish the GFATM, to “ensure” such replenishment and to provide funds beyond 2012. The EU must immediately commit to the full replenishment of the GFATM for 2012 and beyond and attempts to get specific commitments on GFATM funding can no longer be made contingent on “reform.”

The European Union Bloc’s amendments to the draft declaration are a real and immediate threat to the health rights and wellbeing of millions of people living with HIV across the globe. We call to ensure that HIV treatment targets are reinstated, full commitments for continued funding are made and support for restrictive intellectual property measures are deleted from the draft declaration.