The European Commission recalled, on Friday 18 December, the importance of maintaining the confidentiality of the prices it negotiates on behalf of the EU for bulk purchases of Covid-19 vaccines, following an unintentional leak by a member of the Belgian government.
The Belgian Secretary of State for the Budget, Eva De Bleeker, had in fact inadvertently published, on Thursday 17 December, via Twitter, a table detailing the prices of the various vaccine candidates from the companies AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi/GSK, BioNTech/Pfizer, CureVac and Moderna before withdrawing her tweet.
When questioned, the Commission pointed out that the confidentiality of commercial information constitutes a contractual clause, without which the contract cannot be concluded, and consequently the doses of vaccine delivered.
“This confidentiality is indeed in the interest of companies, (but also) in the interest of the Commission, the Member States and the European citizens, because we want to reach fair agreements”, insisted Commission Health Spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker. And to continue: “If all the sensitive information were to be made public, this would weaken the position of the negotiators of the Commission and Member States involved in these negotiations”.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the price table revealed by Mrs De Bleeker triggered debate and questions, reported the Belgian and US press. The BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine doses were indeed bought at a cheaper price by the EU than the official one (€12 versus €15.9). Same thing for the Moderna vaccine (€14.7 versus more than €20). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)