Original article (in Serbian) was published on 04/10/2023; Author: Milica Ljubičić
Lately, Serbia intensified the “BIO4” project by requesting a loan of 200 million euros from the Development Bank of the Council of Europe for the construction of a scientific research centre under that name. This project has also attracted the attention of anti-vaxxers, who are signing a petition in which, among other things, they protest about this project, stating that they “do not accept that it is used for the realization of clinical experiments”. BIO4 Campus represents a national project whose goal is research in various scientific fields, and it will be made up of several faculties and scientific institutions from Serbia.
So far, almost three thousand people have signed a petition that advocates preventing Serbia from “handing over health sovereignty to the WHO” and which, as the authors of the petition say, they want to show that the citizens do not accept experiments in the “BIO4” project.
“We, the undersigned citizens of Serbia, refuse to surrender our health sovereignty to the World Health Organization (WHO). We do not accept that we serve for the realization of clinical experiments in the BIO4 project”, it is stated at the beginning of this petition, which was launched by the citizens’ association “Physicians and Parents for Science and Ethics” and has so far been signed by over 2,800 people. Some of the signatories left comments such as: “I don’t believe WHO”, “Criminal organization in a nutshell”, “WHO treats us like rabbits and slaves”.
The text of the petition states that “the new role of the WHO is to take control of your body and to impose violent and unapproved treatments, all under the false claim that it protects you from the pandemic”.
What is the BIO4 Campus that anti-vaxxers are afraid of?
“BIO4” stands for biomedicine, biotechnology, bioinformatics and biodiversity.
The initiative to build the BIO4 Campus began two years ago, and in June of this year, the Government made a decision to establish a company of the same name that should manage this scientific research centre.
The Government of Serbia states that the BIO4 Campus “will include six faculties, nine scientific research and development institutes, a science and technology park, as well as biopharmaceutical companies”.
“It is planned that this multidisciplinary ecosystem will represent a unique centre in the wider region, which will also attract researchers from other fields, such as mechanical engineering, economics, philosophy, and sociology”, according to the Government’s website.
Money for the construction of Campus Serbia has already started to be sought. The Agreement on taking a loan from the Development Bank of the Council of Europe worth 200 million euros was sent to the Assembly for voting, which according to that document is half of the required money.
As part of the “BIO4” project, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed with the companies Pfizer and AstraZeneca, which, as stated, confirms the partnership in the development of biomedicine and biotechnology in Serbia.
In addition to them, Serbia previously signed Memorandums of Cooperation with the pharmaceutical companies “Roche” from Switzerland, “Merch, Sharp and Dohme from America, “BGI Group” from China, and “Takede” from Japan.
In July of this year, the Serbian Academy of Sciences established the company “BIO4 doo”, which should manage this campus.
The acting director of the company is Smiljana Krivokuca, who comes from the cabinet of Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, and Nova ekonomija states that Krivokuca is also a member of the jury for the conceptual solution of the BIO4 Campus.
At the beginning of July, Nova ekonomija wrote about the fact that the company “BIO4 doo”, which at that time was still not officially registered in the APR, received 102,000 dinars from the budget.
Surrender of sovereignty and WHO
Claims that Serbia will “hand over sovereignty to the WHO” have been around for a long time, and apparently, they are linked to the World Health Organization Pandemic Agreement.
However, the content of this agreement is still being prepared, and as many as 194 countries are negotiating it. Adoption is announced for May 2024.
It is an international document, the idea of which, as Raskrikanje wrote earlier, is for countries to network more strongly in order to exchange information about potential pandemic threats faster and better, in order to prevent stockpiling in certain countries at the expense of others, in other words, that resources during the pandemic – diagnostic devices, medicines, vaccines – are distributed equally and fairly. Also, among other things, the agreement should define the formation of safer global supply chains and enable a sufficient number of health workers during the pandemic in all countries.
The idea, as stated on the WHO website, is to ensure equality in access to everything needed to prevent a pandemic, such as vaccines, protective equipment, expertise, information, as well as access to health care for all people.
In November 2020, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, was the first to propose the creation of an international agreement on pandemics that would facilitate coordination between countries and their supply in cases of global contagion. Since then, various meetings and negotiations related to the drafting of this agreement have been held.
Although the content of the agreement is still unknown, there are no indications that it will deprive the states of their sovereignty.
The World Health Organization states that the member states are negotiating the agreement itself, and that each will take into account their national laws when negotiating, as well as whether some provisions will be legally binding for all member states.
The German Ministry of Health said the same for Deutsche Welle, that “finally agreed regulations will be ratified by sovereign states in order to have a national legal effect”.
An expert in international law, Pedro Vilareal, who researches global health law and the role of the WHO, then explained to Deutsche Welle that “in the current draft of the treaty or agreement on the pandemic, it is emphasized that states retain their sovereignty in determining prevention measures and actions in the event of a pandemic”.
Also, in April of last year, the former Minister of Health, Zlatibor Loncar, signed a two-year agreement on cooperation between the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization, which covers several areas such as immunization, mental health, as well as assistance in recovery from the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In March of this year, the Minister of Health, Danica Grujicic, visited the Regional Office of the WHO for Europe in Copenhagen in order to strengthen cooperation with the WHO in the matter of primary health care, which covers a number of areas.
None of these activities, however, means that Serbia has surrendered its sovereignty to the World Health Organization.