26. The Chairman recalled that, at its meeting on 20 December 2002, the General Council had invited the TRIPS Council to resume work on this agenda item promptly at the beginning of January 2003 in order to resolve the outstanding issues in the text that his predecessor had circulated on 16 December 2002 (JOB(02)/217) and to report to the General Council in order to enable it to take a decision implementing a solution to the problem identified in paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health (hereinafter "the Declaration") at its first meeting in 2003. Upon his predecessor's report to the General Council at its meeting of 10 February 2003 on the status of his consultations, the General Council had agreed to suspend discussions on the implementation of paragraph 6 of the Declaration and, if necessary, to revert to this issue at a reconvened meeting. At the last TRIPS Council meeting of 18-19 February 2003, his predecessor had informed the Council that, notwithstanding his consultations on the subject, he was not in a position to put forward any further suggestions to bridge the remaining gap in the text of 16 December 2002. His predecessor had also informed the General Council that his further consultations had not led to a result which the TRIPS Council could forward to the General Council.
27. He continued that since then he had been in touch with many delegations on a bilateral basis or in small groups in order to brief himself on their positions and concerns and to gauge the scope for finding a way to resolve the outstanding problem. He had been advised by many delegations that the time was not ripe for more structured consultations. Nevertheless, the delegations had stressed their resolve to finding a multilateral solution prior to the Cancún Ministerial Conference. He drew the Council's attention to two new documents, one, a letter he had received from the Deputy Prime Minister of Vanuatu, who had written in his capacity as the President in office of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) Council of Ministers (IP/C/W/401), and another, a communication from the European Communities on the implementation of the Declaration (IP/C/W/402). He suggested that the European Communities communication be considered under this agenda item although it did not specifically concern the implementation of paragraph 6 of the Declaration, but dealt more broadly with the implementation of the Declaration as a whole.
