Brussels (AFP)
European leaders, meeting in Portugal, expressed their skepticism on Friday at the US proposal to lift patents on anti-Covid vaccines, and recalled that the EU was the "only democratic region" to export vaccines on a massive scale.
Under the surprise impetus of the Biden administration, the subject imposed itself on the menu of the heads of state and government of the Twenty-Seven, at the top until Saturday in Porto (north-west) for an agenda devoted to social.
"In the short and medium term, this lifting will not solve the problems, will not provide a single dose of vaccine," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at a press conference.
She stressed that Europe was the "only democratic region in the world that exports on a large scale", around 50% of its production: 200 million doses have so far been exported, she said.
- Donation of doses -
A position similar to that expressed by French President Emmanuel Macron: if he said he was "open" to the discussion, it was to immediately clarify that this should "not kill the remuneration of innovation".
He felt that the problem was "not really" that of intellectual property.
"You can give the intellectual property to laboratories which do not know how to produce (the vaccine), they will not produce it tomorrow", he argued, taking up a flagship argument of pharmaceutical groups, according to which to open a new factory and training its employees takes at least a year.
"The donation of doses (by producing countries) remains the key," Macron insisted, also calling on the United States and the United Kingdom to stop "blocking" exports of vaccines produced on their soil.
"Today, 100% of vaccines produced in the United States of America go to the American market," he added.
Ursula von der Leyen called for investments to increase vaccine production capacities, not only in Europe but also, for example, in Africa.
"The proposal of the United States is perhaps tactical", judged a European source, stressing that they had not formulated concrete proposals.
Madrid for its part "welcomed" the American proposal.
"But we believe that this is insufficient and that we need to be much more ambitious," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said when arriving at the top.
"Intellectual property cannot be an obstacle to putting an end to Covid-19 and ensuring equitable and universal access to vaccines," said his government, calling for "an urgent consensus" for a lifting of patents within the World Trade Organization (WTO).
He recommends, in the meantime, to push the laboratories to "accelerate the transfer of voluntary licenses".
Berlin, on the other hand, has expressed frank hostility to a patent waiver.
- "Bottlenecks" -
For Germany, whose BioNTech and CureVac laboratories are at the forefront of vaccine design, "the protection of intellectual property is the source of innovation and must continue to be so".
"What limits the manufacture of vaccines are production capacities and high quality requirements, not patents," Angela Merkel's government warned.
The European Commission has exclusive competence to negotiate a possible lifting of patents at the WTO and must therefore first receive a specific mandate from the Member States.
"The rules want that such a mandate can be adopted by a qualified majority, but you do not want to engage in negotiation if you already have signals that certain States do not support you", entrusts a European official.
burx-jug-alm / csg / cn
© 2021 AFP