Health Minister Neophytos Charalambides on Tuesday hailed a deal reached by the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament regarding a new regulation aimed at securing stocks and supply lines of critical medicines across the bloc.

“Patients should not have to worry about whether critical medicines such as antibiotics will be available at their pharmacy or hospital,” he said.

He added that as a result of the agreement, “we are taking practical action to reduce our vulnerabilities, diversify supply chains, and strengthen Europe’s capacity to produce critical medicines and their ingredients closer to home”.

The agreement has seen the Council of the EU and the European Parliament provisionally come to a joint position on the details of the planned critical medicines act.

According to the council, the agreement “introduces an obligation for contracting authorities to apply resilience-related requirements in public procurement procedures for critical medicines”.

It added that the new rules also aim to “incentivise EU-based manufacturing of critical medicines and their active ingredients”, and as such reduce the EU’s dependency on third countries for both.

Additionally, it said that the new rules will allow multiple EU member states to procure medicines jointly, “thereby strengthening their collective leverage”.

This change comes in line with a reduction of the minimum number of states required to submit a request to the European Commission for the commission to procure on their behalf from nine to five.

Regarding medicine stocks, the new rules will stipulate that “any contingency stock requirements” implemented by member states “should be transparent and respect the principles of solidarity and proportionality”.

Meanwhile, the health ministry said that the new rules will create “for the first time, a comprehensive framework to prevent and address shortages of critical medicines”.

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, too, hailed the agreement, saying that “together, we are delivering real results for people across Europe”, while thanking Cyprus for its “excellent cooperation” with the European Parliament.

The new rules will enter force once they have been formally approved by the council and the European Parliament.