India seeks EU exemption for 'traditional' medicines

India has urged Brussels to exempt traditional ‘ayurvedic’ medicines from EU legislation governing herbal treatments.

An EU directive on traditional herbal medicinal products will block remedies that have not been in regular European use for 15 years.

Ayurvedic medicines have been used in India for centuries but have not enjoyed widespread use in Europe until recently with an increased fashion for ‘alternative medicine’.

India’s commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath has urged the European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson to resolve the problem at an EU-India summit on September 7.

Nath argues that the directive would become a barrier to trade and criticized the EU requirement that a medicine must go through at least 15 years of continuous European use.

“This condition is neither scientific nor based on any risk analysis, and has the effect of an insurmountable non-tariff barrier to trade,” he claimed.

The Indian minister added that plans to set up a Brussels working group on the issue would take some time to execute and he pressed Mandelson to defer implementation of the directive until the matter is resolved.

The directive is set to be implemented from October 2005.

• Previous article
• Next article