International

The SP supports European Citizens' Initiative 'No Profit on the Pandemic' for the free availability of vaccines and treatments against COVID-19. The petition campaign is a unique cooperation between more than 350 social organisations and left-wing parties from all over Europe.

SUPPORT THE CITIZENS' INITIATIVE

Recently, the People's Vaccine Alliance calculated that the large multinationals producing corona vaccines make profits of more than USD 1,000 per second. So, they are making huge loads of money on the pandemic. At the same time, there are not enough vaccines worldwide to vaccinate everyone against the coronavirus who wants to.

This allows the virus to circulate in many low-income countries. This is bad for those people as well as for people in the Netherlands. The more the virus can circulate, the greater the chance of dangerous mutations, which may also cause many problems in Europe.

That is why it is important to take control of vaccines away from the big pharma. This is the only way to solve the shortage of vaccines. Then more vaccines can be produced. The big pharmaceutical companies are against it, because they do not want to share the knowledge and patents of their vaccines. This might reduce their profits. It is therefore necessary to suspend patents on corona vaccines and treatments so that all the factories that can safely produce them may do so.

The SP calls on the European Commission to ensure the free availability of a vaccine or drug against COVID-19.

European citizens have the right to address the European Commission directly with a European Citizens' Initiative to propose a concrete change to the law. At least 1 million people from across the EU must sign this initiative.

The citizens' initiative 'No Profit on the Pandemic', co-supported in the Netherlands by bodies including FNV, Oxfam Novib, Wemos and War Child, can be signed here.