Article 1
The position to be taken on the Union’s behalf in the seventy-fourth session of the World Health Assembly shall be the following: The European Union supports the establishment of a World Health Organization process for a new Framework Convention on Pandemic Preparedness and Response and must, within Union competence, be allowed to participate as contracting party to such a treaty. The decision of the World Health Assembly setting out the procedural aspects of the negotiations must allow for the participation of the Union in the negotiating process addressing matters falling within Union competence, in view of the Union’s possible accession to the Convention as a Regional Economic Integration Organisation. Such participation should be achieved through the inclusion of specific references in the body of the text of the decision clarifying that any intergovernmental body set up to draft and negotiate the Convention shall be open to the participation of Regional Economic Integration Organisations.