Support waiver on vaccine patents, PM Modi urges EU

Tribune News Service
NEW DELHI, MAY 8

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called upon the European Union (EU) to support India’s joint proposal with South Africa for an intellectual property waiver on vaccine production-related patents.

The US also supported the proposal a couple of days ago but India had pointed out that the waiver needs to be approved quickly at the WTO to enable rapid scaling up of manufacture and timely availability of affordable Covid vaccines and essential medical products.

“The EU’s support at WTO for this waiver will ensure that we can scale up the vaccine production for equitable and global access and save lives,” PM Modi told leaders of the EU at a hybrid-format summit on Saturday. Although 120 countries have backed the India-South Africa proposal, the 27-member EU is still in opposition.

This is the first time that the EU hosted a meeting with India in the EU+27 format. The meeting was at the initiative of the Portuguese Presidency of the EU Council with the Prime Minister of Portugal Antonio Costa displaying his Portuguese passport as well as his Indian OCI card at the meeting.

PM Modi was to travel to Portugal for the first India-EU summit following the holding of the long-delayed dialogue between the two on human rights. PMs Modi and Costa also jointly wrote an Op-ed in the prestigious European media portal ‘Politico’, emphasising trade and investment ties, supporting effective multilateralism and a rules-based order.

The meeting provided a platform to the leaders of India and the EU to exchange views on key topical issues of mutual interest. The three broad clusters of discussions were: trade, technology and connectivity, Covid, environment and climate change, and foreign policy, security and regional issues, said MEA’s Secretary (West) Vikas Swarup at a media briefing.

PM Modi and the EU leaders sought to give a push to bilateral commerce by welcoming the decision to resume negotiations for balanced and comprehensive free trade and investment agreements.