Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1381190
14 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 9 JUNE 2021 EUROPE WHILE European Union (EU) member states continue to op- pose a waiver on intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines and medicines, it may soon find itself at odds with the European Parliament, which is expected to pass a resolution in support of the waiver today. Negotiations on the controver- sial waiver proposal, co-spon- sored by India and South Afri- ca, will resume this week at the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council. The waiver would extend to patents, copyright, industrial de- signs, and "trade secrets" related to all COVID-19 "products and technologies". According to an amended version of the initiative, it would be time-limited to three years – with WTO review annu- ally. The proposal has met with con- tinued opposition from the Euro- pean Council (member state gov- ernments) which tabled its own counter-proposal at the TRIPS council last week. In contrast to the blanket waiver, the EU initia- tive would continue to rely upon the use of existing IP exceptions to allow countries to produce COVID-19 vaccines and medi- cines under compulsory licenses as needed. Last month, Ambassador Xolel- wa Mlumbi-Peter, South Africa's Permanent Representative to the WTO and co-sponsor of the proposal, condemned the "cir- cular discussion" on the waiver proposal – which was made eight months ago. Her Indian counterpart and co-sponsor, Ambassador Bra- jendra Navnit, says that waiv- er opponents have been using "delaying tactics" by "changing goalposts" to raise new problems once their earlier concerns had been addressed. Groundswell of European Parlia- mentary support However, a groundswell of sup- port for the broader waiver initia- tive is emerging among European parliamentarians. The draft res- olution due to go to the plenary on Wednesday calls for "a tem- porary TRIPS waiver for COV- ID-19 vaccines and related health technologies, and for the EU to actively participate in text-based negotiations at the World Trade Organisation to achieve this". A motion to approve the reso- lution already passed by a com- fortable majority in the European Parliament's Committee on In- ternational Trade on 19 May, and is widely expected to be carried by the plenary. Proponents of the waiver say it is an essential tool to stimu- late more vaccine production in countries and manufacturing sites that have idle capacity – and thus get 11 billion vaccines made and distributed as fast as possible to immunise 70% of the world's adults against SARS-CoV2. Vaccine dose-sharing has so far only yielded 200-million doses at most – and on Monday WHO launched another urgent appeal to G7 leaders, meeting this com- ing weekend, for donations of an- other 100 million doses now, and 250 million doses by September. The net result is that while the US and the EU are moving to normalise their societies as they mass-vaccinate, poor countries in Africa and Latin America, which lack vaccines, are facing third and fourth waves of the pandemic. In Latin America, the rate of new COVID cases is now three times that of India – and these swelling numbers could also give rise to more virus variants in a re- gion that has already seen signif- icant variants of concern emerge in countries like Brazil from un- controlled infection spread. At the same time, a number of reputable vaccine manufactur- ers – notably in Indonesia and Bangladesh – have stated that they have the capacity to produce COVID-19 vaccines – but can- not because none of the pharma companies that have successfully developed a COVID vaccine have signed them onto manufacturing deals. Compulsory licenses are a 'legit- imate tool' Even so, the EU remains reso- lute in its opposition to the TRIPS waiver on COVID-19 products and technologies – despite the groundswell of support the waiv- er initiative has gained among 60 WTO members, including a US endorsement of a waiver on vac- cine-related IP. Last Friday, the EU made pub- lic its counter-offer to the waiver that proposed that WTO actions focus on three very modest fixes: Lifting cross-border trade re- strictions on COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and components; Encouraging vaccine producers to voluntarily expand produc- tion; Facilitating the use of compul- sory licensing within the TRIPS Agreement. "Voluntary licenses are the most effective instrument to fa- cilitate the expansion of produc- tion and sharing of expertise," the EU stated. "Where voluntary cooperation fails, compulsory licenses, where- by a government grants a target- ed license allowing a willing pro- ducer to make a vaccine without the consent of a patent-holder, are a legitimate tool in the con- text of a pandemic." Current rules for compulsory licenses onerous – critics say But critics say compulsory li- censes designed to satisfy the domestic needs of a country in crisis – are too complicated and onerous for the kind of quick and large-scale global actions needed now to combat the pandemic. In particular, medicines or vac- cines produced under a compul- sory license by one country can- not easily be exported to another country – without the producers' fulfilling yet another series of de- tailed conditions that only permit such exports under closely cur- tailed TRIPS "exceptions". The WTO export restrictions on products manufactured under compulsory licenses bode ill, in particular, for vaccine producers – which use components pro- cured from multiple suppliers, in processes that also may take place in diverse countries – from producing the active biological ingredients to "fill and finish". Moreover, in order to ensure sustainability and even quality control, vaccine producers typ- Is the European Council on collision course with the European Parliament on COVID IP Waiver? Greenpeace Switzerland activists project messages in various languages outside the WTO building in Geneva in support of the TRIPS waiver