Last checked at 
(adds withdrawal of U.S. restrictions, paragraph 11; and
statistic on vaccinations in last line)
By Robin Emmott and Francesco Guarascio
BRUSSELS, June 9 (Reuters) - The European Union and the
United States are set to agree at a summit on Tuesday to reduce
export restrictions on COVID-19 vaccines and drugs, a draft
joint text says, arguing that voluntary sharing of technology is
the key to boosting output.
The document, seen by Reuters and still subject to changes,
makes no mention of mandatory waivers on vaccine patents, which
U.S. President Joe Biden has endorsed as a temporary solution to
the global shortage of COVID-19 shots.
The EU has repeatedly opposed the idea, which is backed by
dozens of poorer nations.
Brussels submitted a less radical counter-proposal to the
World Trade Organization last week that highlights existing WTO
rules allowing countries to grant licences to manufacturers
without the consent of the patent-holder..
At a EU-U.S. summit in Brussels on Tuesday, the two parties
are set to agree to establish a joint taskforce to boost vaccine
and drugs production capacity that will aim at "maintaining open
and secure supply chains, avoiding any unnecessary export
restrictions".
The EU has urged Washington not to hamper the export of
vaccines and materials needed for their production. Biden is
using the decades-old U.S. Defense Production Act (DPA) to put
the U.S. government first in line to buy American-made vaccines
and treatments, and control the supplies they require.
The draft also says the taskforce will try to expand global
production of vaccines and drugs by "encouraging voluntary
sharing of knowhow and technology on mutually-determined terms"
- a far remove from forcing pharmaceutical companies to give
away their patents to competitors.
VACCINE DIALOGUE
A taskforce led by EU Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton
is already meeting regularly with a U.S. COVID-19 taskforce
chaired by Jeffrey Zients to address production and trade
bottlenecks affecting vaccine makers.
CureVac, a German biotech firm that is developing a vaccine,
has already been helped to access materials from the United
States as a result of two-way political dialogue.
Last week, the White House said it would withdraw DPA
restrictions imposed on a number of vaccine makers that have
received U.S. funding but do not yet have U.S. approvals,
including AstraZeneca, Sanofi SA/GlaxoSmithKline Plc
,, and Novavax Inc.
The joint taskforce is intended to strengthen and formalise
the work done so far, an EU official said.
The draft conclusions of the EU-U.S. summit also reaffirm
support for the World Health Organization's (WHO) COVAX
programme, intended to ensure fair distribution of vaccines
around the world.
Brussels and Washington pledge in the draft to "encourage
more donors to make 2 billion vaccine doses available worldwide
by late 2021".
The United States has so far pledged to donate 80 million of
its excess doses to poorer nations, and the EU at least 100
million by the end of the year.
But the task of fully inoculating the world is expected to
be a long one. The text says that the U.S. and the EU "aspire to
vaccinate at least two-thirds of the world's population by the
end of 2022". In other words, as many as 2.5 billion people in
the world may not get a shot before 2023.
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio and Robin
Emmott; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
