Ursula von der Leyen announced, on Tuesday 26 January, that the European Commission, which she chairs, would propose the creation of a permanent “bio-defence preparedness programme” based on a public-private partnership, in order to best anticipate any new pandemic.
This programme, she said during her speech via videoconference at the Davos summit, will be based on “three main pillars”: - this ongoing programme will be fully dedicated to discovering (and preparing for) known and emerging pathogens and then developing and manufacturing vaccines at scale; - securing long-term funding for this task “rather than reallocating resources every time”; - bringing together technologically innovative companies and regulators such as the “European Medicines Agency or the European Commission”.
This programme will be steered by the future EU Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), which the European institution will propose to create in 2021 on the model of the American BARDA agency (see EUROPE 12600/24).
Biodiversity. At the Davos summit, Mrs von der Leyen reiterated the importance of simultaneously combating climate change and the loss of biodiversity in order to prevent an increase in both natural disasters and zoonoses.
“If we do not act urgently to protect nature, the next pandemic will be around the corner”, she insisted.
With this in mind, the President of the Commission has called for the next United Nations summit on biodiversity (COP15) - to be held from 17 to 30 May 2021 in Kunming (China) - to reach an agreement on biodiversity similar to the Paris Agreement on climate. And to recall that the EU will “soon” present a legislative framework to protect at least 30% of its terrestrial marine areas (see EUROPE 12636/8). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion and Damien Genicot)