The Netherlands appreciates the efforts of the INCB in efforts to improve access to essential medicines. The Netherlands is deeply concerned about the 87-million people lacking availability to drugs. A recent study has found that millions of people in Europe lacked adequate access to pain medicine. This is a breach of patients’ human rights and there is an ethical imperative to address this issue urgently. There is currently a review in Europe of laws to identify and remove barriers to pain treatment. The Netherlands supports WHO’s access to controlled medicines programme and urged other donor states to do the same.