Maltese patients are forced to pay two or three times more for certain medicines than their counterparts in other EU member states because of unfair competitive practices, Robert Abela warned on Thursday.
Abela was speaking as European leaders negotiate new pharmaceutical regulations at a summit on competitiveness in Brussels.
Abela argued that the single market is currently placing Malta at a disadvantage in certain sectors, most notably pharmaceuticals.
“We are facing an almost unbelievable situation because our market is the smallest in Europe,” Abela said. “Our access to medicine is endangered,” he warned.
“We cannot have a situation in which pharmaceutical producers decide not to send certain medicines to the smallest member state, or that the price for our citizens to access those medicines are double or triple their price in Brussels.”
Abela insisted that amendments to the bloc’s pharmaceutical regulations need to take this reality into account, although he suggested that this may be an uphill task.
“So far, the pharmaceutical regulations are not going in the direction that we would like,” he admitted.
“But I will push for all our citizens to have access to all the medicines they need at a fair price,” he said.