The European Commission intends to enter into negotiations on behalf of the EU with the United States on a non-binding instrument on “a programme to defeat the global pandemic” of Covid-19, according to an EU Council Presidency briefing note to Member State delegations dated 22 April.
Already approved by the EU Council’s Public Health Working Group, it was submitted on Wednesday 27 April to the EU27 Ambassadors to the EU (Coreper), who launched a written procedure to approve the opening of negotiations.
According to the document, as seen by EUROPE, this instrument would take the form of a joint declaration and/or a roadmap to be approved at a summit, organised by the United States and announced for May.
This would be purely administrative cooperation between HERA and the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Member States’ experts said.
This cooperation would mainly concern: - immunisation and the supply of vaccines to low and middle income countries through the Covax facility; - supply chains; - research on therapeutic products, a diplomatic source told EUROPE.
The Member States’ experts also made it clear that these transatlantic negotiations should respect the prerogatives of the EU Council with regard to the ongoing negotiation of an international agreement or other international instrument of the WHO on prevention, preparedness and response to future pandemics, to be concluded in 2024 (see EUROPE 12940/19).
The response of the Member States’ ambassadors, initially expected on Thursday at 4pm, is expected on Friday morning, as the written procedure has been extended.
It should be recalled that in September 2021, the EU and the US launched a transatlantic partnership to accelerate vaccination against Covid-19 and help vaccinate 70% of the world’s population by September 2022 (see EUROPE 12797/17).
See the briefing note submitted to Coreper (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/1er (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)