European Union negotiators have reached a provisional deal on new rules intended to strengthen the bloc’s supply chains for essential medicines and reduce dependence on manufacturers outside the EU.
The measures are designed to prevent the shortages that in recent years left pharmacies short of painkillers, antibiotics and children’s fever medicine. Negotiators say the rules will make it easier to support production inside Europe and improve access to critical drugs.
“With today’s agreement, we are taking practical action to reduce our vulnerabilities, diversify supply chains and strengthen Europe’s capacity to produce critical medicines and their ingredients closer to home,” said Cypriot Health Minister Neophytos Charalambides, whose country currently holds the rotating EU Council presidency. He added that people should no longer have to worry about whether they can obtain essential medicines from their pharmacy or hospital.
Key elements of the deal include giving procurement priority to medicines manufactured in the EU when public contracts are awarded, simplifying the use of public funds to support domestic production, and fast-tracking approval and funding for so-called strategic projects. The rules would also allow groups of countries to buy important medicines together, a move aimed particularly at improving supply for treatments of rare diseases where market incentives are weak.
The agreement is provisional and still requires final approval by EU member states and the European Parliament before it becomes law.
The European Commission identified several causes of past shortages, including bottlenecks in the supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients and the concentration of production in a small number of countries. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how such concentration can disrupt supplies. EU health ministers have warned that some 80–90% of medicaments used in Europe are sourced from Asia, notably China and India.
At the same time, the Commission notes that about 900,000 people work in the EU pharmaceutical sector, underlining the bloc’s domestic manufacturing capacity that the new rules aim to bolster.
If adopted, the measures are intended to diversify supply chains, increase resilience, and ensure quicker access to medicines for patients across the EU.