118. In response to the questions raised by the delegation of India regarding the situation in Greece, the representative of the European Union said that, while he agreed that Greece was going through difficult economic times, he failed to see the link with the annual review of the System. The System was designed for countries with no or limited manufacturing capacities in the pharmaceutical sector in order to ensure that they could make effective use of compulsory licences to import medicines from other countries. In the European Union, public health systems provided universal coverage for all patients. Those systems were expensive and represented an important part of public expenditure. This explained why economies had to be made and delays in payments sometimes occurred. It was, however, simplistic to blame IP for this, as it was simplistic to think that all the problems in the public health sector could be solved by systematic recourse to compulsory licences. Recent studies in Europe had shown that the cost incurred by purchasing the most innovative patent protected medicines represented only a relatively small fraction of the overall costs of national health systems. The studies had also illustrated that the money to buy those medicines was well spent because it helped to avoid higher costs, for instance, for long-term treatments or treatment in hospitals. He was of the view that it was possible to keep an IP system in place that supported the development and production of innovative medicines. There was no debate in the European Union to change the status as an opt-out Member that was not allowed to use the System as an importer.
