On Monday 18 January, the EU Ministers for European Affairs will prepare the informal videoconference of 21 January, during which the European Heads of State or Government will take stock of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ministers will discuss in particular the difficulties involved in rolling out national vaccination campaigns three weeks after their launch. On Friday 15 January, six Member States (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Sweden) complained about the “substantial” reduction in future vaccine deliveries announced to them by Pfizer/BioNtech, deeming it “unacceptable” and capable of decreasing the credibility of the vaccination process, in a letter sent to the European Commission and copied to EUROPE (http://bit.ly/2Ki0YJ7 ).
On the distribution of vaccines, Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakides, reminded their Health counterparts on Thursday that Member States were not contractually allowed to negotiate and acquire approved vaccines in the EU outside the group purchasing mechanism led by the European Commission (see EUROPE 12635/3).
Next Thursday, European leaders are expected to discuss the mutation of the coronavirus, given the recent British, South African and Brazilian variants, and their sequencing capabilities to detect them. They will also exchange views on speeding up vaccination as the best way to avoid increased restrictions on movement or even the closure of intra-EU borders, which they want to avoid at all costs.
Portugal, which holds the six-monthly Presidency of the Council of the EU, has decreed a return to health measures in place in the spring of 2020 during the first wave of Covid-19, while keeping schools open. France has announced additional restrictions for travellers from non-Member States, notably the UK. The country asks travellers to provide the results of a recent PCR test, not an antigen test, and to place themselves in quarantine upon arrival.
The EU27 could also discuss the Greek suggestion to develop an EU-wide vaccination passport to facilitate free movement. This idea has received mixed support from Member States, in particular because of its prematurity. Applied too early, it runs the risk of triggering a toxic debate on discrimination between citizens who are not vaccinated at the same time.
However, on Friday 15 January, the Deputy Spokeswoman of the European Commission, Dana Spinant, said that the President of the European institution, Ursula von der Leyen, considered the idea to be “a good thing” (see other news). She refused to say more about the conditions and modalities of its application, while assuring that the Commission was working internally on the issue.
However, the project to set up a European form to facilitate crossing internal borders, announced last autumn, has fallen behind schedule.
Ahead of the 21 January summit, the Commission will publish a new communication on Covid-19.
FUTURE of the EU. After presenting its political priorities for the first half of 2021, the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU will inform the Member States about the ongoing discussions at the highest political level regarding the launch of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
“We are working to see if we can bring the positions of the Commission, the European Parliament and the EU Council. Not so much questions of substance, rather the governance” and when to start it, a European source said on Wednesday 13 January.
By the end of 2020, the EU institutions would have reached agreement on almost all the elements of the Joint Declaration (MoU) setting out the priorities and modalities of the Conference, except the question of the Presidency. In the EU Council, several Member States refuse to allow the Belgian liberal Guy Verhofstadt, the choice of the European Parliament, to preside over the work, judging him to be too federalist.
On Tuesday, the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, raised the possibility of a collegial presidency of this pan-European citizens’ consultation exercise, which is supposed to last two years (see EUROPE 12634/4). Tested at the end of 2020 at the EU Council, this idea would have been badly received by France at first.
The Portuguese authorities hope to be in a position to launch the Conference in the spring at Parliament’s headquarters in Strasbourg. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean and Mathieu Bion)