While saying they were ready to discuss the possible lifting of patents on Covid-19 vaccines, as taken up by US President Joe Biden, European leaders reiterated on the evening of Friday 7 May and Saturday 8 May that the most urgent need was to export vaccines to third countries.
Half of the Covid-19 vaccine doses produced in the EU are exported.
“We encourage all our partners, including vaccine producers, to follow this example”, urged European Council President Charles Michel after the EU/India and social summits in Porto. “This is the best way to address the global vaccine shortage”, added European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
“If you compare the US, the UK and the EU, we are the ones who have exported the most (...) I call on the US to end the export ban on vaccines and components”, President Macron explained to the press, including EUROPE. “The export ban must be lifted and doses must be released”, insisted the French president, emphasising technology transfer and dose donation.
Referring to the US support for lifting patents on vaccines, Ms von der Leyen said she was open to discussion but noted that vaccines were needed now. “In the short to medium term [the lifting of patents] will not help with the vaccine shortage. So we need vaccine exports and investment to increase production”, she explained.
Ms von der Leyen also announced, on Twitter, that a new contract had been signed to buy 1.8 billion doses of Covid vaccine from BioNTech-Pfizer. This is a firm order for 900 million doses and an option for a further 900 million doses. These new deliveries are planned for the period 2021-2023. She clarified that it would be possible for Member States to donate or resell some of these doses. A quarter of EU citizens (160 million) have already received at least one dose of the vaccine.
For Europeans, then, the urgency does not lie with the lifting of patents. According to Mr Macron, “the proposal is relevant for the future, but it does not address today’s problems”. He felt that this issue would be relevant when there is sufficient vaccine production and that the price of intellectual property is a cost issue. However, the French President said he was in favour of moving forward on the issue.
According to Mr Michel, many European leaders felt that the issue of intellectual property was not the silver bullet that would solve everything in the short term. However, he explained that the Europeans were ready to discuss the issue “as soon as a concrete proposal is tabled”.
From Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her opposition to giving up patents, saying it was not the way to make vaccines available to more people. “If a patent is given up and quality is no longer controlled, I see more risk than opportunity”, she added.
The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, spoke of his country’s proposal not only to suspend patents, but also to speed up the process of transfer of technology and knowledge to all countries in the world (see EUROPE 12715/5).
In addition, Mr Michel said that EU leaders, at their meeting on 25 May, will discuss the green certificate to encourage “all efforts to find common agreement on this important issue”.
Inter-institutional negotiations are ongoing on the subject (see EUROPE 12712/11). (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant and Pascal Hansens)