While the EPP called for payments to be suspended only if the results of the study revealed risks to drug supplies, the ECR called for the scheme to be paused while the study is happening. The amendments passed, some narrowly: The EPP’s proposal was pushed through with 305 in favor, 238 against, and 11 abstaining; The ECR proposal passed with 282 votes in favor, 245 against and 13 abstentions.
Overall, the amended resolution passed with 294 votes in favor, 245 against, and 28 abstentions.
Socialists and Democrats MEP Tiemo Wölken said that by supporting the ECR amendments, “which deleted the need to protect public budgets and denounced the principle of EPR as a whole, the EPP revealed its true colors: this was never about improving the system or safeguarding access to medicines, but instead part of their wider ideological battle against holding polluting industries responsible.”
Vlad Vasile-Voiculescu, from the centrist Renew group, 14 of whom supported the amendments, said that suspending the extended producer responsibility will not solve the challenges facing Europe’s pharmaceutical sector.
“What it will do is postpone investment, weaken legal certainty and delay action to reduce harmful micropollutants in our waterways,” he said. “We need practical solutions to protect medicine supply, not political shortcuts that undermine environmental legislation.”
Over to the Commission
While not legally binding, the resolution is now harder for the Commission to ignore after it secured support from Parliament’s largest group, 14 lawmakers from Renew, four from the socialists, as well as right-wing groups.