“Italy was right”. The recognition, albeit after some time, comes from Ursula von der Leyen in her speech on the Union. The president of the EU commission made a statement on Thursday morning and acknowledged that Italy's request for European-level intervention on the Covid emergency was not only well founded but necessary. It was the premise, she adds, for the vaccination campaign that the EU then launched and which is now giving its first successes with 30 people vaccinated per second in the EU. But above all, von der Leyen jumped at the choice of US President Biden to suspend patents on vaccines. And she replies: “We are ready to discuss it”. The vaccine patent exemption will be discussed at the informal summit of EU leaders in Porto over the weekend.
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But here, directly reported by the Ansa agency, are the words of Ursula von der Leyen:
“I remember well the beginning of the pandemic and Italy's appeal to Europe. The Italians asked for European solidarity and coordination. Italy was right, Europe had to intervene. And that's what we did." Thus the president of the EU Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, in the speech on the State of the Union 2021.
“Our vaccination campaign is a success. What matters is the steady and growing deliveries of vaccines to Europeans and the world. To date, 200 million vaccines have been distributed in the EU. That's enough to vaccinate at least half of Europe's adult population at least once. Neither China or Russia, they come close". So the president of the European Commission in her speech.
“With Draghi in Rome” on May 21 “we will host the Health Summit. We need to move from ad hoc solutions to the pandemic to a system that works for the whole” world. “We want to discuss international cooperation. Our health renaissance begins in Rome,” said Von der Leyen.
“A few kilometers from Florence there is a small village, Barbiana, where Don Lorenzo Milani wrote 'I care' in English on the wall of the school. He told the students that those were the two most important words to learn. 'I care' means taking responsibility. Europeans have demonstrated by their actions what this means. This must be Europe's motto. 'We care'”, underlined Von der Leyen.
“The EU is ready to discuss any proposal that addresses the crisis” of Covid “in an effective and pragmatic way. This is why we are ready to discuss how the US proposal for a waiver of intellectual property protection” of patents “for Covid vaccines could help achieve this goal,” added the president of the EU Commission.
In this regard, the European president recalled that the EU is currently "the main exporter of vaccines in the world" and called on the other producing countries to lift their export restrictions. A temporary revocation of patents is mainly requested by India and South Africa, but some countries, including France, are firmly against it. “We are currently calling on all vaccine manufacturers to authorize exports and avoid all restrictions that could disrupt supply chains,” von der Leyen insisted. “More than 200 million doses produced in Europe have been exported, as many as there are vaccines that the EU has supplied to its citizens,” she underlined.
As for the positions of individual countries, Italy e France they will support the possibility of suspending licenses for the production of vaccines and will ask the EU to adopt a common position to present to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the body entitled to intervene in the matter.
La Germany, however, does not agree. According to the chancellor Angela Merkel, “the limiting factor is production capacity, not patents: we are working to improve capacity in Germany, the EU and the rest of the world”.
However, many believe that the Berlin braking points, first of all, to defend the patent of Biontech, the Mainz-based Big Pharma that partners with Pfizer.
Draghi and Macron, therefore, will try today to convince the Chancellor (who is participating in the summit via video conference) of the need to immediately agree on a common profile to be presented also at the World Health Summit to be held in Rome on 21 May (Italy is G20 president in office).
