Listen: Can the EU achieve pharmaceutical sovereignty?

Production: By Europod, in co-production with Sphera Network.

EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Briefed” hosted by Léa Marchal. The podcast is available on all major platforms.

Find the full transcript below:

“Medicine safety is a matter of survival. We need it as much as we need shelter and missiles.” That’s the title of a recent article from the Polish media outlet Krytyka Polityczna, our partner within the Sphera network.

European countries need to become more self-sufficient in medication production in troubled times, the author emphasises.

Everyone agrees. 

But can the EU actually achieve pharmaceutical sovereignty?

“In February, March, and April 2022, shortly after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, a strange phenomenon occurred in Poland. If prescriptions are to be believed, a large group of previously healthy people suddenly developed chronic illnesses and were immediately prescribed large quantities of medications. In some hospitals, the use of various medications increased, while others disappeared under unclear circumstances. This wasn’t a reaction to a sudden epidemic, but one of the most beautiful and least-known episodes of the Polish movement to aid Ukraine. All these medicines were subsequently distributed in Ukraine, where there was a severe shortage of medicines.”

This story, reported by our partner Krytyka Polityczna, highlights the risks of relying on other countries for essentials such as medicines.

Ukraine has experienced this firsthand. In the first months of the war, more than three thousand chronically ill people died in Ukraine due to a lack of access to medicines and medical care.

According to the World Health Organization, in early 2026, up to eight in 10 Ukrainians still lacked access to all the medicines they needed.

But Ukraine is far from the only country on the continent at risk.

Let’s look back at the Covid-19 pandemic. 

For two years, European countries worried that their stocks of medicines needed to treat the disease and other conditions would run out.

In 2020, the European Parliament even adopted a resolution calling for the EU to become more self-sufficient in medicine security by securing supplies, restoring local medicine production, and better coordinating national health strategies at the EU level.

But what’s the problem with the current system?

The main problem is that Europe’s supply of medicines is highly dependent on third countries.

In the 1990s, the European pharmaceutical industry relocated a major part of its production to China and India. 

The EU imports around 40 percent of its medicines. But even medicines produced in Europe often rely on active pharmaceutical ingredients from India or China — up to 80 percent of the time.

As a result, the EU has increasingly faced severe shortages of so-called “critical medicines,” such as antibiotics, insulin, and painkillers, in recent years.

Half of these shortages are linked to production issues, particularly disruptions in the supply of active ingredients. These ingredients are an essential part of medicine production because they are, in short, what makes a drug work.

So what can the EU do to improve the situation?

The answer may lie in the so-called Critical Medicines Act, which the European Commission put forward last year. It aims to boost the production of critical medicines within the EU.

On 12 May, six years after the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, the Council and the European Parliament agreed on a final text.

What does it contain?

Measures to facilitate access to EU funding for strategic pharmaceutical projects.

New obligations for member states to maintain contingency stocks.

And a European preference criterion in future public procurement procedures. In other words, price can no longer be the sole criterion for public entities that buy medicines.

This outcome has been welcomed across the political spectrum, by industry players, and by patient organisations alike.

Because it will favor EU companies over third-country suppliers, it is expected to encourage more pharmaceutical production in Europe.

Will it be enough to significantly increase production?

Maybe not. Industry representatives also point to other obstacles, such as regulatory barriers. But on this front too, EU lawmakers are moving quickly to remove those barriers one by one.