De Keyser (PSE). – (FR) Mr President, in the space of one minute I can only paint a sketchy picture of the rapporteurs’ work, and I apologise to them in advance. I recognise all that they have done. I would simply like to say to you that the compromise, which consists in providing medicines with data protection for eight years, plus two, plus one, is a great New Year gift from the European Parliament to the pharmaceutical industry and recognition of the effectiveness of powerful lobbies.

This gift will, however, further deepen the deficits for the Member States’ social security budgets by delaying the marketing of generic medicines. Why such generosity? The pharmaceutical industry put forward the reason that it must fund research, but studies have proven that only a fifth of new medicinal products launched on the market during the last twenty years were really innovations. In addition, the New York Times writes that two thirds of medicinal products approved between 1989 and 2000 were only minor modifications of existing medicinal products.

Furthermore, if our social security systems urgently need generic medicines, then what about developing countries where 95% of AIDS victims live and where there are also a large number of endemic diseases? There, the lack of generic medicines is, quite simply, criminal. Amendment No 19 of the Grossetête report refers to this. For goodness sake, let us adopt this and uphold the spirit of Doha. Let us at least set our solidarity with the developing world against the pharmaceutical lobbies.