DEN INRE MARKNADEN - Related Opinions

The Commission proposes a new pharmaceutical strategy for Europe. It is a patient-centred strategy that aims to ensure the quality and safety of medicines, while boosting the sector’s global competitiveness. The EU needs to make sure that patients have access to high-quality, effective and safe medicines. It will foster patient access to innovative and affordable medicines. It will support the competitiveness and innovative capacity of the EU’s pharmaceutical industry.

The liberal professions are already very successful in using digital and artificial intelligence applications for the benefit of their clients, and are at the forefront of their technological development. They must continue to be more closely enlisted in the development and validation process in future in order to ensure applications are usable in practice and effective. The liberal professions need to update the content of training in order to ensure their own IT and digital skills and those of their employees are of the highest possible quality standard. The creation of new professions made possible by digitalisation should be encouraged, on the basis of the criteria and principles set out in the Rome Manifesto.

The EESC fully supports the European Commission's action plan on intellectual property as a very good and holistic approach to modernising the EU IP system. The EESC welcomes all measures to enforce the fight against IPR infringement, and the strengthening of the role of the European Anti-Fraud Office in the fight against counterfeiting.

In its opinion, the EESC points out that implementing the single window environment for customs will take trade in goods into the new digital age through simplification and automation. Trade generally in the EU will grow, the Union will become more competitive, and customs will be modernised.