Basic medicines for the European defence: the European Commission introduces the Critical Medicines Act

Translated by Erica Cervellera

On the 12th of March 2025, the Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare Olivèr Vàrhelyi kept to his word to present a legislative act to face the severe lack of critical medicines in the European Countries within the first hundred days of his mandate.

The Critical Medicines Act will bring changes on many aspects of the pharmaceutical system through some strategic projects in the European context and in each European Country.
The document proposes a set of tools to attract pharmaceutical investments in the European market through both administrative and regulatory benefits. The incentives to the increase of medicines production in the European territory may also be given by the Countries who will have an increased public expenditure for national health, thus loosening the current European spending constraints. On a national level, a “Buy Europe” approach will be promoted, prioritizing European suppliers and production in the pharmaceutical industry.

One of the most relevant aspects proposed by the Commission surely is the introduction of a coordinated pharmaceutical supply system, whose objective is to reduce the shortage of medicines through the supervision of national stocks, especially critical medicines ones. Moreover, it aims at ensuring greater equality when buying these products, since many Countries were unevenly affected by the shortages.

Furthermore, part of the Critical Medicines Act provides for the development of new partnerships and trade agreements with third Countries to strengthen and diversify the European pharmaceutical supply chain. The Covid-19 crisis has already proven how much the European Union relies on their Countries in the matter of the access to critical and common medicines. Currently, India and China produce about the 60% - 80% of the critical medicines in the European market: China alone is the main European supplier of the 80% - 90% of antibiotic medicines.
The Covid-19 pandemic brought the attention of the European Commission on the pharmaceutical system vulnerability, especially in cases of crisis and conflicts. The initiative of the Belgian Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke was extremely significant to highlight this topic: he collected the support of 23 member Countries to ask for an intervention by the Commission on the safety in the pharmaceutical industry, by stressing the need to work to reach a strategic autonomy regarding critical and common medicines, both for civil and military purposes, in case of conflict.
In the first months of 2025, defence and security were the priorities of the European Commission interventions which could not exclude to face the health and pharmaceutical system vulnerability as well.

The Commission has justified the quick push for the legislative proposal with the emergency caused by the recent and long medicine shortages in many European Countries. What has also contributed to accelerate the submission of the act is the announcement of the president of the USA, Donal Trump, to impose a 25% tax on the pharmaceutical industry products, thus bringing the European leaders to speed up the process for reaching a strategic autonomy in the pharmaceutical sector and to the research of new international partnerships.

Mondo Internazionale APS - Copyright® 2025