The European Union is beginning to prepare for the aftermath of the “second wave” of the Covid-19 outbreak. At the end of the videoconference of Heads of State or Government, the European Commission announced its intention to present a proposal for a gradual and coordinated approach to the lifting of containment measures.
“We have to do everything in Europe so that we can celebrate Christmas at least in small family groups”, said Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. “The meeting discussed the rules to be applied to travel between countries during the Christmas period, in order to ‘harmonise’ positions and devise a common strategy”, said Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa.
“We need to learn from the past and be careful when lifting restrictions. We all want to celebrate the end of the year, but it has to be done safely “, concluded the President of the European Council, Charles Michel. According to him, two other topics were discussed by the EU27 during their videoconference: testing and future vaccines.
This is the second time that European leaders have discussed the Covid-19 pandemic as part of their regular dialogue decided in mid-October (see EUROPE 12592/1, 12583/1). Contrary to what many expected, the political crisis linked to Poland and Hungary’s veto on the European budget and the Recovery Plan did not take precedence over health issues.
Optimism about vaccines
At the press conference, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, welcomed the good results achieved in clinical trials conducted by several pharmaceutical companies.
The European Medicines Agency expects that candidate vaccines developed by BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna will, if all goes well, be able to receive conditional marketing authorisation “as early as the second half of December 2020”.
BioNTech-Pfizer, with whom the Commission has signed a pre-purchase agreement for its candidate vaccine, had announced the day before that its product was 95% effective (see EUROPE 12600/5). The vaccine from Moderna, with which the Commission is still negotiating, is 94.5% effective, according to initial results (see EUROPE 12602/2).
Ms von der Leyen also confirmed that discussions with Novavax were still under way (see EUROPE 12592/1). At present, the EU portfolio includes candidate vaccines from AstraZeneca, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer-BioNTech and CureVac.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel also stressed that the Commission had been asked to prepare a “well-founded information campaign” in response to potential reluctance to use vaccines against Covid-19 and that it should be able to provide valid information.
Technical work in progress
On the last aspect, that of tests, European leaders seem to be ready to increase coordination on rapid tests on the basis of the recommendation presented the day before by the Commission, which is now to be discussed in the Health Security Committee (see EUROPE 12604/4). They also recognised that rapid and PCR tests are complementary, without making any new commitments on the recognition of PCR tests, an issue that has been problematic for several months.
However, as with antigenic testing, many discussions are currently taking place at the technical level. This is, moreover, the case for the interoperability gateway for positive case-tracking apps, in which, according to the German Chancellor, seven Member States are already participating.
This is also true for the European single passenger locator form: at a press conference, Ms von der Leyen said she was launching the pilot project for a single form with the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), with the aim of having an interoperable tool throughout the EU by December (see EUROPE 12591/1). According to the Commission, two Member States have already signed and 12 others are technically ready to join, as they have already adopted a compatible form. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean, with the help of Agathe Cherki, Lionel Changeur and Mathieu Bion )