Is the global pandemic treaty dead?

There will be no global pandemic treaty this year, after countries again failed to agree on a mandate to better prepare for and cooperate during a health crisis like COVID-19.

Delegates and civil society groups say the draft treaty has been substantially watered down over three years of talks, with limited progress made during the most recent round of negotiations, which ended this month. 

That leaves an ever-shrinking chance that the treaty will be finalised by the May 2025 deadline.

In 2020, then-president of the European Council Charles Michel was among the first to propose the treaty to address problems that surfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

It would implement new measures with the goal of curbing inequalities between the global north and global south during the next crisis, for example by ensuring access to vaccines.

“A pandemic knows no borders, so international collaboration is a must,” Jaume Vidal, a senior policy advisor on European projects at Health Action International, told Euronews Health.

But “it’s really difficult to find a consensus” because “pharmaceutical companies have an agenda, developing countries have a set of priorities, developed countries have their own goals,” he said.

Two sticking points in negotiations

More than 190 countries are involved in the talks, facilitated by an intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) organised by the World Health Organization (WHO). 

The treaty was initially supposed to be complete by May 2024, but the deadline was bumped back a year after negotiators failed to finalise a draft.

In the latest round of talks, countries failed to break a stalemate on two key sticking points: pandemic prevention efforts, and a pathogen access and benefits sharing (PABS) system where countries would share information about emerging disease threats and in turn get access to vaccines and drugs.

Europeans have been pushing for prevention initiatives, which would oblige countries in the global south to shore up their disease surveillance, early warning systems, infection control, and other pandemic preparedness programmes.

The Africa group has been skittish about these financial commitments.

The Africa group also wants priority access to vaccines, medicines, or other tools that are developed using the information it shares on pathogens that could become pandemic threats. That’s been a problem for wealthy countries with strong pharmaceutical sectors.

These are the same disagreements that have held up negotiations for the past half-year, but with the May 2025 deadline looming, the gridlock is becoming more contentious.

Civil society groups say that lower-income countries are now being pressured to accept a deal that would move the PABS measures to an annex, meaning they would be worked out later on after the treaty is signed – and leaving them with little leverage to negotiate on the prevention clauses.

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“Developing countries are hesitant; one, because they don’t have resources to implement such obligations [on prevention], and two, because the EU and other rich countries are not flexible in other matters,” Piotr Kolczynski, Oxfam International’s EU health policy and advocacy advisor, told Euronews Health.

Failing to make concessions

However, a negotiator from an EU country told Euronews Health that the INB is also pushing the European group to make concessions in order to get a deal done as quickly as possible, which will likely depend on informal talks in early 2025 alongside the 10 planned days of formal negotiations.

“It will really be on [the INB’s] shoulders,” the negotiator said, because the 10 days of formal talks “will not provide sufficient time to sort this out”.

A spokesperson for the European Commission declined to comment on the closed-door negotiations.

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The reelection of Donald Trump in the US throws additional uncertainty on the future of the treaty, given Trump’s wariness toward the WHO. 

His new administration could walk away from the deal, stall talks, or push to further water down commitments.

It’s also unclear whether EU and national leaders are as committed to international solidarity as they were during the pandemic, which could stymie efforts to push a strong treaty through the finish line.

“The longer we spend on it, the less likely it is that it will succeed, and also that there will be something left that is worth fighting for and that is worth signing,” the negotiator from an EU country said.

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“The political momentum has been declining from the start to get this treaty done”.