French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday called on “the Anglo-Saxons” to stop “blocking” exports of vaccines against the coronavirus and the ingredients necessary to produce them, which would make it possible to strengthen global vaccine “solidarity”.
“For the vaccine to circulate”, we must “not block the ingredients and the vaccines themselves,” he declared on his arrival at a European summit in Porto. However, “today, the Anglo-Saxons block many of these ingredients and vaccines. Today, 100% of vaccines produced in the United States of America go to the American market, ”he said.
The EU exported 45 million doses of 110 products
He pointed out that out of 110 million doses produced in Europe, the EU had exported 45 million and kept 65 million. “We are the most generous in the world today in the camp of developed countries,” he noted.
The French president repeated that he was “open” to the idea of lifting intellectual property on anti-Covid vaccines, supported by US President Joe Biden. “We Europeans have been fighting for the vaccine to be a global public good for a year now, and I am happy that we are being followed,” he said.
Macron in favor of technology transfers
In recent months, Emmanuel Macron had estimated on several occasions that the “good debate”, “the useful debate”, should not first relate to intellectual property but to “the transfer of technology and the mobilization of production capacities” . He had indicated that he had “no opposition, only doubts about the effectiveness of a possible release of the patents”.
He specified that the debate on patents should “not kill the remuneration of innovation” and that he was working “completely hand in hand with German Chancellor” Angela Merkel and the European Commission on this subject.