It is undoubtedly a great challenge to our technical and political capacity successfully to confront the epidemic and the impact of HIV/AIDS in our societies, but it is also a demanding test of our coherence.

I welcome the pioneering initiative of the Irish Presidency of the EU, which gives this problem its due important.

I would also like to pay tribute to all the bodies that in the last decades have played a key role in this process. In particular, I would like to pay homage to the United Nations, which is the great moving force behind a fruitful intervention, with significant results in the international consensuses obtained, the policies outlined, and the funds collected to help the needier populations.

The Declaration of Commitment of the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 2001, the creation of the Global Fund for the fight against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the 3 by 5 campaign, to provide antiretroviral therapy to 3 million people with HIV/AIDS in developing countries by the end of 2005, are three far-reaching initiatives.

The work of UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation have on the other hand also conveyed the assurance of the United Nations’ persistent and effective involvement in fighting the infection the world over.

Very early on, the European Union established common base principles to guide the prevention and fight against AIDS in its Member States, and it attempted to create a structure to monitor developments; in the 90s the programmes “Europe against AIDS” and the action programmes for AIDS prevention were designed to help the Member States to reach their objectives in the fight against AIDS.

But we must make further progress. As I see it, this seminar is moving in the right direction, by enlarging participation to other countries of Europe and central Asia and including in the draft Declaration concrete actions in the more sensitive areas.

With the accession of new Member States the European Union is growing and it must consider adopting new policies for changing situations.

We live side by side in our countries today with citizens of many parts of the world. Thus, we must establish strategies in our social policies and in particular in our health policies that take into account different cultural and epidemiological aspects. Information, education and training on transmissible diseases, and AIDS in particular, must bear in mind an increasingly complex and plural social reality, requiring actions addressed to immigrants and ethnic communities who do not fit into the traditional target groups.

The notion of risk populations is different today from the one we had a decade ago, and now the very idea of risk involves the effects of stigmatisation and discrimination to which citizens of the Member States of the European Union or other States are subject because of an unsuccessful integration.

It is vital then, that a transversal concern with the immigrant communities is included in the prevention and treatment programmes, the fight against stigma and discrimination and in partnerships. In the end it is a question of seriously applying the principles that inspired the so-called “European Social Model”, to the new conditions of demographic mobility and multicultural living that are taking root in the old continent.

On the other hand, the European Union, as it did in 1993 for drugs and drug addiction, should set up a specific agency to serve as a technical and political instrument capable of establishing consistent Community policies in this regard. Support for Member States and co-operation with third countries and international organisations, in particular the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS, should be two of the main objectives of this new European Union agency. Compiling objective and comparable information at European level on the problem of HIV/AIDS should be the first task of this body; I refer specifically to information on epidemiological aspects but also to national and Community strategies and policies in this area, and to international co-operation.

This agency should, on the one hand, constitute the focal point of the European Union on AIDS and on the other, act as a dynamic pole of national and Community technical and political interventions based on scientific evidence and on shared knowledge.

The problem of AIDS should occupy a position at the forefront of national and Community political agendas and this requires involving the main actors who can positively influence the behaviour of populations, improve information and the efficiency of decisions, and prevent stigma, discrimination and social exclusion.

It is necessary to have a social commitment that involves everyone, and a political commitment that translates words into actions, particularly in the area of providing aid to the countries most affected by this epidemic, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa.

I leave the Presidency of the European Union, the President of the European Parliament and the European Commission with a challenge: within the framework of an enlarging union of peoples, we must take better action to control this extremely serious problem and have a more efficient tool of international co-operation.