Remarks by President Charles Michel before the working session of the informal meeting of the members of the European Council in Porto

Yesterday evening, we had the opportunity to tackle again Covid-19. There are 3 important points.

First one: we are making progress in Europe on production and distribution of vaccines. Second point, green certificates. We decide that on 25th of May, next EUCO , we will come back on this topic to make sure we can encourage all efforts to find a common agreement on this topic. Third, international solidarity. We are totally committed through COVAX. We took the decision in Europe to make exports of vaccines possible and we encourage all partners to facilitate export of doses.

On intellectual property, we don’t think in the short term that it’s the magic bullet but we are ready to engage on this once concrete proposals are put on the table. We all agree we need to do everything possible to increase production across the world.

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