Wednesday

29th Mar 2023

Vaccine-waiver row refuses to die at EU-AU summit

  • While more than 70 percent of Europeans are fully-vaccinated, the figure for Africans is just 11 percent (Photo: UNICEF Ethiopia)
Listen to article

African Union countries will seek backing to lift patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines this week but there are few signs that Europeans were prepared to comply ahead of an EU-AU summit in Brussels.

Nearly a year after the creation and approval of vaccines in Europe, heads of state of the African Union are still looking for a patent waiver - even for a limited period - in order to increase their own production capacity.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Some rich EU countries that are home to major pharmaceutical hubs continue to oppose the move, despite the widespread recognition by EU leaders of a universal right to health.

The African Union has tried to include the patent waiver in the joint conclusions of the summit. But EU countries are not prepared to accept such wording, instead supporting weak language in favour of the "health sovereignty" of Africa.

"The African Union reiterates its support for the TRIPS [Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights] waiver request and urges the European Union to engage constructively towards conclusion of a targeted and time limited waiver which is critical to a WTO response to the Covid-19 Pandemic," the African Union proposed to say in the joint declaration, according to internal EU documents seen by EUobserver.

But the EU has suggested saying instead: "The African Union and the European Union commit to engage constructively towards a comprehensive WTO response on trade and health, which includes commitments on improved transparency, restraint from export restrictions, trade facilitating measures as well as intellectual property."

"The word 'waiver' is problematic and it is something the EU is not prepared to accept," an EU diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told EUobserver.

The EU has argued the patent waiver will not deliver what several of its officials have called a "miracle" solution.

French trade minister Franck Riester, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said intellectual property rights are crucial to spur innovation and lead investments into research.

"We do not want to call into question a system of intellectual property that allows for innovation and that has made it possible, in particular, to have vaccines very quickly in the case of Covid-19," he told a news conference earlier this week.

Europe's current vaccination rates, however, stand in stark contrast with the situation in Africa.

While more than 70 percent of Europeans are fully-vaccinated, the figure for Africans is just 11 percent - and even that disguises some major country-by-country variations.

Charles Chinedu Okeahalam, a Nigerian economist and businessman, told EUobserver the summit is likely to be "very high on talk, pledges and promises, photoshoot opportunities and posturing for domestic and international audiences" but would fall short of delivering any significant compromise on vaccine access.

The EU-AU summit comes just a few days before the next round of negotiations on the patent waiver at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and some fifteen months after South Africa and India first proposed to lift intellectual property rights of Covid-19 vaccines and medicines.

WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been in talks with the EU, the US, India, and South Africa for two months seeking to bridge differences.

Those talks have been held in an "extremely difficult atmosphere," according to a source close to the negotiations, who declined to speak on the record.

Civil society organisations, meanwhile, have slammed US pharmaceutical giant Moderna for filing patent applications related to vaccine production in South Africa – a move that could potentially undermine plans to build African vaccine production.

The news comes after the South African company Afrigen announced it had reverse-engineered Moderna's vaccines.

Moderna did not answer EUobserver's request for comments.

Opinion

If EU blocks vaccine waivers, it can drop 'solidarity' talk

Workers such as United Nurses Association of India are furious that the EU is undermining their best efforts and exacerbating the crisis by continuing to put big-pharma profits ahead of Covid vaccine patent-waivers. Is this what solidarity looks like?

Pressure builds on EU to back WTO vaccine-patent waiver

MEPs have backed a motion demanding the temporality lifting of intellectual properties rights of Covid-19 vaccines - a symbolic move that puts pressure on the European Commission to change its position on the issue of global access to vaccines.

Ramaphosa slams EU for protecting vaccine profits

African leaders, after their two-day summit in Brussels, called an offer by the EU to help Africa build vaccine-manufacturing plants was incomplete without backing a vaccine patent-waiver proposal.

Opinion

Never waste a crisis - so start building Covid research in Africa

Botswana was the first country able to detect the emergence of the Omicron variant, thanks to its sequencing capacities. Eleven infectious disease experts from Africa and Europe call for developing research networks across the African continent to respond future pandemics.

Column

What does China really want? Perhaps we could try asking

Perhaps even more surprising to the West was the fact that the Iran-Saudi Arabia deal was not brokered by the United States, or the European Union, but by the People's Republic of China. Since when was China mediating peace agreements?

Opinion

Biden's 'democracy summit' poses questions for EU identity

From the perspective of international relations, the EU is a rare bird indeed. Theoretically speaking it cannot even exist. The charter of the United Nations, which underlies the current system of global governance, distinguishes between states and organisations of states.

Latest News

  1. The overlooked 'crimes against children' ICC arrest warrant
  2. EU approves 2035 phaseout of polluting cars and vans
  3. New measures to shield the EU against money laundering
  4. What does China really want? Perhaps we could try asking
  5. Dear EU, the science is clear: burning wood for energy is bad
  6. Biden's 'democracy summit' poses questions for EU identity
  7. Finnish elections and Hungary's Nato vote in focus This WEEK
  8. EU's new critical raw materials act could be a recipe for conflict

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. InformaConnecting Expert Industry-Leaders, Top Suppliers, and Inquiring Buyers all in one space - visit Battery Show Europe.
  2. EFBWWEFBWW and FIEC do not agree to any exemptions to mandatory prior notifications in construction
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic and Baltic ways to prevent gender-based violence
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Economic gender equality now! Nordic ways to close the pension gap
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Pushing back the push-back - Nordic solutions to online gender-based violence
  6. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: The Nordics are ready to push for gender equality

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Azerbaijan Embassy9th Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting and 1st Green Energy Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting
  2. EFBWWEU Social Dialogue review – publication of the European Commission package and joint statement of ETUFs
  3. Oxfam InternationalPan Africa Program Progress Report 2022 - Post Covid and Beyond
  4. WWFWWF Living Planet Report
  5. Europan Patent OfficeHydrogen patents for a clean energy future: A global trend analysis of innovation along hydrogen value chains

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us