US stand on vaccine patent waiver is no magic bullet: EU
I call very clearly on US to put an end to export bans not only on vaccines but on vaccine ingredients
Emmanuel Macron, France President
We are ready to engage on this topic, as soon as a concrete proposal would be put on the table.” Charles Michel, European Council chief
I hope we can come to a free exchange of components and an opening of the market for vaccines,”
Angela Merkel,
German Chancellor
Happy to announce that the EU approved a contract for 900m doses (+900m options) with Biontech/ Pfizer for 2021-2023.
Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission chief
Europe on Saturday passed the ball back to Washington in a debate over Covid vaccine patents, pushing the US for a concrete proposal and a commitment to export much needed jabs.
European Council chief Charles Michel, attending an EU summit in Portugal, said the bloc was ready to discuss a US offer to suspend patent protection on vaccines — once the details are clear.
“We are ready to engage on this topic, as soon as a concrete proposal would be put on the table,” Michel said, as EU leaders discussed the issue in Porto.
Michel, who represents the EU’S 27 national leaders, cautioned however that the bloc has doubts about the idea being a “magic bullet” in the short term. The quickest solution to ramp up the distribution of vaccines globally was exports, and the EU encouraged “all the partners to facilitate the export of doses,” he said.
France has adopted a similarly sceptical approach — with President Emmanuel Macron declaring that “patents are not the priority” — while Germany is openly hostile to the idea.
“I call very clearly on the United States to put an end to export bans not only on vaccines but on vaccine ingredients, which prevent production,” Macron told reporters.
“The key to producing vaccines more quickly for poor countries and developing countries is to produce more, to lift export bans,” he said.
As the summit continued, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the leaders had approved a contract with drugs giant Pfizer/biontech for up to 1.8 billion doses of their patented vaccine.
“Happy to announce that the EU Commission has just approved a contract for guaranteed 900 million doses (+900 million options) with Biontech/ Pfizer for 2021-2023,” she tweeted from an EU summit in Portugal. “Other contracts and other vaccine technologies will follow,” she promised.
Influential voices have risen to back the push to waive patents, not least Pope Francis, who on Saturday criticised putting “the laws of the market or intellectual property above the laws of love and the health of humanity”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday urged the United States to export coronavirus vaccines made on its soil, as she rejected a patent waiver call from Washington for the jabs.
“Now that a further part of the American population has been vaccinated, I hope that we can come to a free exchange of components and an opening of the market for vaccines,” she said, adding that the EU has exported a big chunk of jabs made in the bloc and that should “be the rule”.
The EU leaders’ comments came on the second day of an EU summit that was to also feature a bilateral meeting between the EU and India, where authorities on Saturday said the pandemic killed 4,000 people in a single day.
The day before at the summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “An IP waiver will not solve the problems, will not bring a single dose of vaccine in the shortand medium-term.”—