Brussels, 16 October 2017

Your Excellencies, dear Heads of State, dear Prime Ministers,

Council decision to relocate the European Medicines Agency must put public health first

We are writing to you on behalf of the European Patients’ Forum to express our deep concern regarding the imminent relocation of the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

The role of the EMA is vital to the safeguarding of public health. In addition, it contributes significantly to the attractiveness of the EU for investment, clinical research, and innovation which not only benefits patients, but also wider society. Being closely involved with the activities of the EMA as an organisation represented in the Patient and Consumer Working Party and the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC), we are all too aware that the relocation process will, even in the best case, lead to some disruption and reduced capacity. We are extremely concerned about the prospect of the Agency’s operations being severely impaired by a suboptimal choice of location – possibly for several years.

The decision on the new location of the Agency must be taken based objectively on the best interest of European patients and of public health – not the political or economic interests of any particular Member State. As a decision-maker, we ask you to focus on those factors which will determine the EMA’s capacity to continue performing its essential duties without disruption. These include:

• respecting the Agency’s own assessment of essential technical requirements • ensuring the Agency will retain as much of its current staff as possible • ensuring the Agency will attract the best possible medical, scientific and civil society experts also in the future • ensuring optimal connectivity across the EU for stakeholder involvement, including good flight and train connections, affordable accommodation and accessibility for persons with disabilities. The latter are vital for ensuring that the Agency will be able to continue its exemplary engagement with its stakeholders, in particular civil society and patient representatives. Patients who participate in EMA scientific committees, advisory groups and other activities are generally volunteers, often live with various impairments and are required sometimes to cover their own costs of participating in EMA activities.

As the Commission has pointed out, the relocation of the EMA is due to exceptional circumstances which could not have been foreseen, and does thus not constitute a precedent for the location of other EU agencies in the future. Whether the new host country already has an EU agency or not should, therefore, not be a consideration.

We trust that the Council will take a wise decision on 20 November: a decision which puts public health needs and the interests of European patients and citizens first, ahead of all other factors.

On behalf of the governing Board of the European Patients’ Forum,

Yours sincerely,

Marco Greco Nicola Bedlington EPF President EPF Secretary-General Member of the EMA Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee

Cc: Dr Vytenis Andriukaitis, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Mr Michel Barnier, Chief Negotiator at the European Commission Mr , President Mr Didier Seeuws , Council Special Taskforce Chief Negotiator Mr , Member of the Ms Biljana Borzan, Member of the European Parliament