If Olaf Scholz is serious about progress, he must back a patent waiver for Covid vaccines | Joseph Stiglitz

Germany is already out of step with the rest of the EU on this and needs to send a strong signal to Joe Biden

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Announcing a “new era” for Germany last month, the country’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, made his bold intentions clear. “We are united by our belief in progress and that politics can achieve something good,” he said, launching his SPD-Green-FDP coalition’s programme, under the slogan “dare more progress”.

This self-described “progress coalition” promises a series of socially liberal domestic policies – but it could make its greatest impact of all if it dares to join the global movement to make Covid-19 vaccines available to all as global public goods. The statement “no one is safe until everyone is safe” must be more than a nice-sounding slogan: Germany has the opportunity and the obligation to help it become a reality.

Joseph E Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate in economics and a professor at Columbia University

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