At the Competitiveness Council on Monday 25 September, Austria and Germany insisted on the need to ensure that the EU pharmaceutical package presented by the European Commission “does not establish measures that hamper innovation and investment and create legal uncertainty that weakens us strategically as a location, particularly in these difficult times for competitiveness”, according to Austrian minister Martin Georg Kocher.
Under other business, Austria and Germany asked to speak about this matter in order to work in a complementary manner with the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council, which is leading on the pharmaceutical dossier (see EUROPE 13256/7).
In Austria’s view, incentives should not start by reducing protection periods or introducing barriers. The Austrian Minister wishes to “discuss” the reduction in intellectual property protection periods from 8 to 6 years, as proposed by the Commission.
Denmark supported the concerns of these two countries, saying in particular that reducing protection could have a negative impact on innovation.
On his arrival at the council, French minister Roland Lescure said that pharmaceutical policy had to be an integrated whole. He recalled the Belgian proposal for a ‘law on medicines’. “I think this is an excellent way of addressing the shortages and also the significant challenges we faced during Covid in terms of our ability to access medicines”. “We need to make sure that it is in manufacturers’ interests to produce in Europe. So it’s a balance we’re trying to assess, and I think we’ll get there”, he concluded.
The Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, condemned the “major inequalities” in access to new medicines within the EU and the “shortages of vital medicines” in small EU countries and eastern Europe. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)