In adopting (385 votes in favour, 193 against and 63 abstentions), on Wednesday 12 July in Strasbourg, the report by Dolors Montserrat (EPP, Spanish) formulating recommendations following the Covid-19 pandemic, the European Parliament stresses that the “future European Health Union must prepare the Union and the Member States to better prevent future health crises”.
A large number of amendments were adopted during the plenary vote, particularly those tabled by the Renew Europe group and some from the S&D group, which concern intellectual property rights in particular.
The European Parliament calls on the Commission, the EMA and the competent authorities to take advantage of all the pragmatic efforts made during the Covid-19 crisis, particularly in terms of regulatory flexibility, with a view to effectively combating medicine shortages, for example in emergency situations. It points out that Covid-19 vaccines have prevented millions of deaths and serious clinical conditions, and calls on the EU to communicate adverse reactions transparently.
The Commission and the Member States are invited to assess the need for a European public health research and development infrastructure that is “ large-scale and focused on missions of public interest, in order to produce medicines of strategic importance to health and healthcare”.
By adopting a Renew Europe amendment, the European Parliament is highlighting the usefulness of monitoring the deployment of the Covid-19 vaccines developed by the ECDC and is calling for this concept to be extended to other vaccination campaigns, such as the HPV vaccination campaign.
In addition, Parliament recalls that the EU should actively participate in the negotiations on the text of a temporary waiver to the TRIPS Agreement (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights). In this regard, it calls on the EU to support the granting of a temporary waiver to certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement for Covid-19 in order to improve timely global access to affordable pandemic vaccines, treatments and diagnostics by addressing global production constraints and supply shortages.
“Even if mistakes were made at the start of the pandemic, the European Union reacted by using all the tools at its disposal and creating new ones, such as the European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority, HERA”, said Dolors Montserrat (EPP, Spanish) during the debate the previous day.
She stressed the need to protect healthcare professionals, avoid medicine shortages and ensure that patients with chronic illnesses or cancer, disabled people and vulnerable families do not see their diagnosis and treatment delayed.
More than 30 million people in Europe suffer from persistent Covid-19, about which we still know very little. “We therefore call for an intensification of research and the development of comprehensive diagnostics and treatments” said the rapporteur. In addition, the European Parliament should have “more power” in the decision-making process in the event of a health crisis.
Alessandra Moretti (S&D, Italian) said that real costs, including those of private pharmaceutical companies, “should be made public and used as a basis for setting prices”.
Tilly Metz (Greens/EFA, Luxembourger) stressed that the most important lesson of this pandemic had not been taken into account in this report. “We have denied the majority of the world’s population access to healthcare in order to protect the profits of the pharmaceutical industry, which has done us no favours during this pandemic”. The Greens/EFA Group has tabled amendments to “correct the misleading balance sheet. If these amendments were not voted through, we would not be able to support the report”, explained Ms Metz.
Margarítis Schinás, Vice-President of the Commission, stressed that the vast majority of Covid-19 vaccines had “mild and transient” side effects. Serious safety problems are very rare, and the EMA only recommends that vaccines be approved if the benefits outweigh the risks.
The certificate has become a global standard. “Two billion certificates issued, 51 countries and territories connected to the European system in addition to our Member States. Thanks to the certificate, we have taken control of our lives”, concluded Mr Schinás. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)