Minutes - TRIPS Council Special Session - View details of the intervention/statement

Ambassador Eui-yong Chung (Korea, Republic of)
C.i New papers from participants
12. The representative of Hungary said that the new submissions made were useful to the extent that they showed the differences between the approaches of the two groups of countries which had different interests in this issue. He further said that the deadline set in paragraph 18 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration was approaching fast, and that the conclusion of these negotiations, which Hungary considered an important part of the ongoing process of agriculture reform, was long overdue. This process had been dragging on for years. The WTO Members had been negotiating the establishment of the register for over five years and, although there had been specific proposals on the table, there had so far not been any real progress. He also said that Hungary was grateful for the Chairperson's concluding remarks made at the end of the June meeting that the scope of the negotiating mandate from Ministers was clear and encompassed spirits in addition to wines. Turning to document TN/IP/W/5, he said that the multilateral system proposed would consist of setting up a computer and hiring a part-time operator for that computer. He assumed that it was "multilateral" because certainly all WTO Members would have access to that computer and it would "facilitate the protection" because all the names notified would be in the database. Hungary was among those countries that had a different understanding of the implications of Article 23.4 of the TRIPS Agreement and the deadline to fulfil this Agreement. In that spirit, Hungary's understanding was that the mechanics were important because an adequate procedural solution could indeed ensure that the system to be set up was cost-effective and efficient, not more burdensome than necessary for the Members and the WTO Secretariat. Having analysed the major proposals, his delegation felt that there was considerably more convergence on the mechanics than on some of the legal issues, in particular on the legal effect of the register. It hoped that, once the major legal elements were agreed upon, the procedural solution could be found with relative ease.
TN/IP/M/3