EFPIA would like to express its concern over the ongoing economic situation in Greece, its potential to have a negative impact on the health service and the possible detrimental effects on the well being of patients in the country. 

Against this backdrop, on June 29, EFPIA sent a letter to Commissioner Andriukaitis, Commissioner for Health, – copying in Commissioners Bienkowska (Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship, SMEs), Katainen (Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment & Competitiveness), Moscovici (Economic & Financial Affairs, Taxation & Customs) and Vestager (Competition) – emphasising these serious concerns. 

The letter highlights two broad categories of issues that could disrupt the supply of medicines were Greece to move towards exiting the Eurozone. 

Firstly, it underscores the worrying potential for medicines shortages in such a scenario, which might arise as a result of excess parallel trade brought on by rapid currency devaluation. We believe that this could jeopardise the very integrity of the medicines supply chain and represents a significant threat to public health. 

In addition, our letter draws urgent attention to possible general practical disruption in the operation of the business environment. As the Greek medicines supply chain is complex compared with other European Member States, it may be particularly vulnerable to this type of disruption, which could have a direct and negative impact on patient health.

EFPIA calls urgently on the Commission to enter into a dialogue about potential solutions. We believe that there are a number of temporary and proportionate options that might be explored that both respect the European Treaty whilst mitigating the potential, significant risk to public health that would arise if the Greece were to exit the Eurozone.

In such a scenario, EFPIA also requests the Commission to facilitate a political agreement by the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council configuration (EPSCO) to ensure that Member States do not refer to Greek prices. If reference were continued to be made, this could have a negative impact on the sustainability of supply, specifically as EFPIA members were already owed some €1.1 billion in arrears in May this year.