Trade deals now being negotiated by the European Union (EU) could be used to force Canada and Thailand to implement anti-generic policies, activists have warned.

In July, the European Parliament rejected the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) put before it by the European Commission, which means it cannot become law in the EU. The Parliament's International Trade Committee had found the Agreement, as written, to be too vague and open to misinterpretation, and health activists had claimed that its over-broad definition of "counterfeiting" would have given unfair advantages to patented drugs and restricted access to generics.

However, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have been warned by citizens groups in Thailand and Canada that the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) being negotiated with these nations could bring ACTA in "by the back door."

Provisions within the proposed EU/Thailand FTA covering border measures, data exclusivity, patent term extensions and protection for new indications would block access to generics, thus violating World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules and the European Parliament Resolution on Major and Neglected Diseases in Developing Countries, according to a coalition of 18 Thai civil society groups. 

This "border measure" is considered stronger than the global IP standard contained within the WTO's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property rights (TRIPs) Agreement and totally against the WTO's Doha Declaration on TRIPs and Public Health, the MEPs are told.

Worse, a "great number" of additional provisions included in the current text of the EU FTA are more stringent that the TRIPs Agrement provisions on data exclusivity, patent protection extension, stricter IP enforcement, data exclusivity on new indications, etc, say the Thai groups. 

"These TRIPs-plus provisions will inevitably prevent generic medicines competition, technically paralyse the use of public health safeguard measures by their trade-partner countries, and eventually undermine access to essential medicines of people in developing nations," they warn.

Meantime, with the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) due to enter final negotiation rounds in September and October, opponents have suggested that, with Canada having already become a signatory to ACTA, the EU is trying to "use CETA as the new ACTA."

One of the problems is the perceived lack of openness with which the CETA negotiations have been conducted, and no public consultation. This is leading to concerns that CETA could impose changes to Canada's domestic policy which would increase drug and health care costs, although Canada's Conservative government, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has described such claims as "a myth."