Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at a time when many people are rightly condemning a war that has already killed hundreds of people, I would like to start my speech this morning with some equally appalling figures. Over 40 million people are now carrying the HIV virus, 36 million of them in developing countries and 28 million in sub-Saharan Africa alone. Malaria, a disease that reappeared in the 1970s, kills around one million people a year. Lastly, there are now 8 million cases of tuberculosis, with 2 million deaths a year, 1.9 million of those in countries of the South. These three terrible diseases, which are incidentally by no means the only ones to be decimating the populations of poor countries, militate against the development of the countries affected and keep them in a state of poverty which, in turn, prevents them from setting up a health system worthy of the name. Humanity must break this vicious and fatal circle if it wishes to survive. It was with these appalling facts in mind – and in their hearts – that the Commission, Commissioner Busquin, the European Parliament and the Council agreed upon and drew up a programme of EUR 600 million under the Sixth Framework Programme on Research and Development, for which I was appointed general rapporteur. This involves putting in place a new instrument under Article 169 – and this is a first, as the Commissioner has reminded us – with the financial participation of several Member States, Norway, the Commission, and, we hope, the private sector. I am delighted, and proud, to have been appointed rapporteur and I wish to sincerely thank my colleagues in my new group for entrusting me with this new task, and also to thank all the other Members who gave me their help, not to mention the members of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, and my assistant. From the outset, we worked collectively and diligently. This House, which received the proposal from the Commission on 28 August 2002, acted swiftly and the ITRE Committee discussed it on three occasions, on 7 October, 11 November and 2 December 2002, before voting on this report and its amendments on 23 January 2003, that is to say within six months, taking into account the opinions of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, represented by Mrs Sandbæk, in accordance with the enhanced Hughes procedure, of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities, represented by Mrs Evans, and of the Committee on Budgets, represented by Mr Hudghton. Following those votes, a trialogue meeting was held with the Commission and the Greek Presidency in Strasbourg on 11 February. I therefore worked quickly, stressing the importance of a North-South partnership and focussing our action on clinical trials and on the reception structures that needed to be built up in the countries of the South, and in particular in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. It was important to avoid over-extending the scope of the programme and the consequent risk of lessening its impact. We need to heed the first victims of these terrible diseases and the people who are helping them to fight them. We need to develop new products adapted to the needs of the populations of these countries and to take them into account when we define priorities. Lastly, and above all, we need to act quickly. At the trialogue meeting on 11 February 2003, we called on the Council to add a reference to other infectious diseases in a new recital. We called for provisions on easy access to these new products. We also called for the involvement of the NGOs and of the WHO, and, lastly, some Members called for more sustained appeals to be made to the private sector. I immediately went on to thank and recognise the role of the Greek Presidency, the Council and the Commission, and my fellow Members were satisfied with the extent to which our requests were taken on board by the Council. We accordingly drafted compromise amendments, which of course involved everyone making certain concessions, so as to come to an overall agreement at first reading. I therefore invite you to support those amendments today, even though I recognise that some points are unsatisfactory, and I have certain reservations myself. But we need to make decisions quickly if we are going to act quickly. Every day that passes thousands of men, women and children die of these diseases. Yes, we need to act quickly and to do everything to make this programme a success, so that it can serve as an example and open up the way to other programmes of the same type for other diseases also associated with poverty. Those diseases may be less well known and perhaps of less interest to the media, but they are just as terrible and just as destructive of lives and consequently of societies.

Political group: GUE-NGL