At a meeting at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Thursday 16 December, South Africa urged WTO members to launch negotiations on texts relating to the proposed lifting of patents on Covid-19 vaccines.
It has indicated that it is ”ready and flexible to find a landing zone that fulfils the objectives of the membership as a whole, including elements advanced by the European Union”, said a Geneva official.
The proposal made by the EU differs in substance from that initiated by South Africa and India in October 2020. However, for South Africa, “overcoming a binary approach between the two proposals is critical for any forward movement on this issue”.
Kathleen van Brempt MEP (S&D, Belgium) said the same thing. “If people have good arguments that the scope [of the South African proposal] is too broad, we need to limit it, then we start negotiating. That’s what we say in the European Parliament all the time. Text based negotiations is not so difficult. But if you and me, we keep on talking to each other and you keep to your dogma, I stick to my dogma, we will not get anywhere. That’s what’s happening right now”, she told EUROPE.
At the WTO meeting, Ambassador Dagfinn Sørli (Finland), who is overseeing the discussions on the subject, concluded that there were still too many fundamental differences to engage in negotiations on the texts.
Virtual meetings at ministerial level have taken place between South Africa, India, the US and the EU in recent weeks, but have not resulted in a consensus. Discussions are expected to continue in different formats. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)