European Union has said it is ready to talk about patent release for COVID-19 vaccines

The President of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen, announced on Thursday that the institution was “ready” to talk about the proposed release of patents for vaccines against covid-19, launched the day before by the US government.

“The EU is ready to discuss any proposal that responds to the crisis in an efficient and pragmatic way. And so we’re ready to talk about how lifting IP can help achieve that goal, ”the official said.

In the videoconference speech to an audience in Florence, Italy, Von der Leyen, however, stressed that the priority should be to increase the global vaccine supply capacity.

Von der Leyen assured that the EC was ready to “discuss any proposal that addresses the crisis in an effective and pragmatic way” and announced that an appeal will be made shortly “to all vaccine producing countries to allow exports and avoid measures that disrupt supply. Chains “.

In addition, described the vaccination campaign in Europe as a success, saying that “so far around 200 million doses have been distributed” within the European Union (EU), that “they are enough to vaccinate at least once more than half of the adult European population” and that “neither China nor Russia even come close to these figures”.

On Wednesday, the United States government announced its support for global publication of COVID-19 vaccine patents and indicated that he would negotiate the terms of this assignment with the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Although the intellectual property rights of companies are important, Washington “supports the exemption of these protections for covid-19 vaccines”, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement.

“It’s a global health crisis and extraordinary circumstances of the covid-19 pandemic require extraordinary measures, ”he added.

The President of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described as “historic” US announcement of support for the lifting of patents on anticovid vaccines.

So far, however, the EU strongly opposed any initiative in this regard.

In his speech to an academic audience, Von der Leyen made a biased critical reference to countries that have set barriers to global vaccine distribution, vetoing exports.

The official admitted that vaccination campaigns in the EU started with a problems, “but I will say that Europe has succeeded by remaining open to the world, while others have reserved their vaccine production for themselves.”

“Europe exports as many vaccines as it distributes to its own population. And to be clear, Europe is the only democratic region in the world that exports vaccines on a large scale.He mentioned, in apparent reference to Russia and China, two other major exporters.

He denounced that “others have tried to take advantage of a difficult situation for geopolitical gains” and stressed: “If the virus continues to spread in India or Africa, Brazil or Russia, it is a serious risk to all of us. It is the breeding ground for variations. We know no one is safe until everyone is safe. “

He further announced that The EU is set to sign a new contract with BioNTech-Pfizer for 1.8 billion doses of vaccine between the end of the year and 2023.

Von der Leyen insisted that “Europe has shown that a union of democracies can work in times of crisis. For its own citizens. And for the rest of the world ”.

With information from AFP

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