18
May
2026
Watch
European solidarity: key to securing medicine access in a shifting geopolitical era (debate)
Mr President, Commissioner Várhelyi, colleagues, who wants firefighters that require you to fill out ten different forms before they save your burning house? The COVID-19 pandemic showed us that Brussels is not the place for a quick response to an urgent crisis. On the contrary, the interventions from the Commission during COVID-19 led to more complexity and less transparency according to the European Court of Auditors. The World Health Organization has repeatedly stated that there is a global health crisis that is systematically overlooked – that is antimicrobial resistance. They predict it to be the number one cause of death by 2050. Yet, the development of new and better antibiotics remains critically underfunded. To combat antimicrobial resistance, European farmers and doctors limited the usage of antibiotics, so resistance declines. But what has the Commission done? It concluded a trade deal with Mercosur, allowing tonnes and tonnes of meat with potentially resistant bacteria to enter our food chain. As an animal scientist, I can tell you this is a train wreck waiting to happen. So, dear Commissioner, we need to step up our efforts to develop new antibiotics before it is too late. So let us make sure that the critical medicines act delivers on this as well.