The European Union does not agree with Ukraine's calls to punish European pharmaceutical companies still operating in Russia with sanctions.
Politico writes about it.
Large-scale sanctions imposed by the EU against Russia have sharply reduced Russian imports, from German cars to French designer brands. The exception is medicines that the EU has exempted from sanctions for humanitarian reasons.
Withdrawal of pharmaceuticals from sanctions is a common practice. There is also an exception for medicines in the sanctions against Iran. And the drugs were not included in the UN sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s.
"The EU is concerned that its ally and future member is turning desperately needed medicines into weapons, and that this will harm the interests of European business," the newspaper writes.
In late May, Ukraine amended legislation that gave it broad powers to remove from the market any drugs made by companies linked to Russia. And in October, it took the first step towards expelling a European company from its market, despite objections from Brussels.
The publication cites the data of the internal assessment of the European Commission, according to which 19 companies - mainly from the EU - are under the Ukrainian government's crosshairs, with a total business volume of 1.7 billion euros.
European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis raised this issue with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal during a recent trip to Kyiv.
Asked by Politico about the law at a recent conference in Paris, Shmyhal said that "the government passed this decision that regulates the ability for companies that produce drugs to sell those drugs on the Ukrainian market."
"We have allowed all European companies to sell in Ukraine all medicines that are produced in all European countries, all over the world, except in Russia," Shmyhal said, adding that Kyiv and Brussels "discussed this, and it seems to me that now decided".
In a conversation with the publication, Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine Taras Kachka downplayed the significance of the disagreements, calling them a "trade irritant." Nothing has been finalized, he said, and no drugs have yet been pulled from the market.
Currently, only the Budapest-based pharmaceutical company Gedeon Richter is subject to the law. A commission created to decide on the removal of companies from the Ukrainian market has voted to ban a Hungarian company that produces everything from heart medicine to antipsychotic drugs. A total of 35 drugs are threatened with withdrawal from the market, although there is no official order on this yet.
It is possible that political considerations are also behind this. Although the Ukrainian government denies any political motives for such a decision, Viktor Orbán's Hungary has been slow to condemn the invasion and aid to Ukraine.
According to Gedeon Richter's latest earnings report, Russia is the company's second largest market. In the first nine months of 2022, it earned 232 million euros by selling drugs in the country in the first nine months of 2022.
Two more companies are under scrutiny: Slovenia's Krka and Berlin Chemie, the German subsidiary of Italy's Menarini Group, which together produce about 300 medicinal products.
It will be recalled that the richest Russian oligarchs lost almost $95 billion last year against the background of strict sanctions imposed by Western countries due to the war in Ukraine.