EU must act together to block death drug export

A couple of weeks ago the German Vice Chancellor Philipp Rösler refused to supply lethal injection drugs when his US counterpart Gary Locke kindly asked him.

"I noted the request and declined," Rösler answered. Simple and effective.

Noting the request is fair enough. It would probably be rude not to. Declining seems only logical and consistent with the strong consensus on the abolition of death penalty in Europe. If you are opposed to something, you probably would not consider being complicit with it, right? And yet, as the Lundbeck story shows, being logical and consistent still has to be publicised as model behaviour.

As a matter of fact, Reprieve is on its way to Berlin to congratulate members of the German Government, and to talk about going further than a simple negative answer – because the “I note and decline” policy is highly dependant on the “I” speaking. In order to prevent the export of lethal injection drugs from the European Union as a whole, we would need 27 individuals to be firm and definitive about the ban. That is why we need governments to regulate.

A few European countries have already used various tricks to put pressure on pharmaceutical industries. But apart from one example of proper regulation in the UK, the action taken by member states has only consisted of one-off measures addressed to pharmaceutical companies: the Italian Government only allowed Hospira to move its plant to Italian territory on the condition that they stop manufacturing lethal injection drugs; the German and Austrian Governments issued statements to their pharmaceutical industries asking them to refrain from selling execution drugs in the US.

Member states seem to think that there is no use in passing 27 regulations when one European law would be sufficient. On April 8th, ministers from 14 European countries wrote to the European Trade Commissioner asking for an EU ban on the export of sodium thiopental.

A US Commerce Secretary begging a counterpart for drugs sounds slightly desperate. Now that we know the wolf is starving, it might be time for European Union to build a good old-fashioned house of bricks. According to Mr Rösler, Mr Locke took note of his refusal and did not insist. This shows that it is easy for Europeans to make themselves understood on this matter. However, the Americans are still unsure about the answer; otherwise they would not bother to ask. A simple, logical and consistent European regulation would save them the trouble of asking.