The undue hurry on the ongoing negotiations between the Indian government and the European Commission (EC) to finalise the EU-India free trade agreement (FTA) has come in for sharp criticism from the NGOs working in the health sector. They have termed the government action as undemocratic.

The Indian government and the EC are intensifying their efforts to conclude the EU-India FTA before the parliamentary report and debate process ends. It undermines the democratic parliamentary process, as there is currently a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce examining the FTAs, NGOs said. This 'settling of differences' during a hasty and rushed negotiation process is of grave concern, as it could lead to harmful IP enforcement and investment provisions being accepted in the agreement, the NGOs added.

The NGOs' concern in this regard comes in the wake of the fact that Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh is reported to have asked the union commerce minister Anand Sharma to push the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion - in charge of the intellectual property (IP) negotiations - to settle their differences with the EU negotiators on IP so that it facilitates the signing of the FTA next month. With the goal of concluding the agreement by early April fast approaching, negotiations have now reached an intense phase with regular meetings to fast track its conclusion.

The agreement, once concluded and signed, will become binding, and will set a precedent for IP and investment standards in all future trade agreements between India and developed countries (US, EFTA). It also sets a negative precedent for other developing country governments (e.g.Thailand) who are being pressurised to accept equally harmful IP provisions by the EU, the NGOs cautioned the Indian government.

In 2010-2011, the EC agreed to withdraw two harmful IP provisions from the text of the negotiations on the IP Chapter. De Gucht, the EU Trade Commissioner in May 2010 asserted that the EC negotiators would no longer pursue the issue of supplementary protection, then in 2011 committed that the harmful data exclusivity clause would no longer be part of the EU-India FTA text.

But the EC is now slyly pushing the harmful IP enforcement and investment provisions in the FTA negotiations with India. If accepted by India, pharmaceutical companies can easily abuse these provisions and use them as a commercial tactic to delay or destroy generic competitor's medicines as it has to merely claim but not immediately prove that their IP is being infringed.

These measures include legitimate medicines being blocked from leaving India on their way to people in developing countries (border measures). In addition, domestically the measures could implicate third parties -such as suppliers of APIs used for producing generic medicines, distributors and retailers who stock generic medicines, and treatment providers- and embroil them in court cases simply for buying or distributing generic medicines, the NGOs cautioned the Indian government further.