Macron joins Biden in supporting the release of …

The French President, Emmanuel Macron, said he was “strongly in favor” of a blanket exemption from the protection of patents for coronavirus vaccines, for which he joined this campaign also supported by the President of the United States, Joe Biden.

“Obviously, we have to make this vaccine a global public good,” Macron said at the inauguration of the largest vaccination center in Paris, at the Porte de Versailles. However, also He added that in the short term, priority should be given to “donating doses” and “producing in collaboration with the poorest countries”.

Macron’s statements implied a change in the position of France, which until now had opposed such a move on the grounds that it would discourage innovation.

“Europe is the most generous continent with the rest of the world,” Macron said, noting that Europe has already exported 45 million doses. In this regard, he urged “the British, Americans and others to follow”.

The position of the European Union

For their part, the heads of state and government of the European Union (EU) closed the two-day summit this Saturday in Porto, Portugal, and concluded that The United States must remove barriers to the export of vaccines before opening the debate on the temporary suspension of patents.

Ursula Von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, assured at a press conference that the EU is “the pharmacy of the world” and called for “any discussion on the protection of intellectual property to be approached with a vision at 360 degrees, which takes into account the production and export efforts assumed ”.

Just two weeks ago, Von der Leyen pointed out to the American newspaper The New York Times that he was not “a friend of patent liberation” and argued that the pharmaceutical industry should be rewarded for its innovation.

Meanwhile, the surprise turn by the United States produced on Wednesday to support global demand for patent release was celebrated by the World Health Organization (WHO), which considered the position “historic”.

“I congratulate the United States,” tweeted WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who called for “all together quickly, in solidarity, to take advantage of the ingenuity and commitment of scientists who produced the life-saving Covid -19 vaccines ”.

Likewise, organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have been campaigning for months to demand the issuance of patents due to the increased death rates that the latest waves of the pandemic are generating in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Europe.