The Heads of State or Government of the EU Member States are preparing to meet, on Thursday 21 January, for the ninth time since the virus first appeared, to discuss the Covid-19 pandemic. They will address the epidemiological situation following the winter holidays as well as vaccination campaigns in the EU and around the world. They will also try to make progress on the issue of a vaccination passport.
Speeding up vaccination campaigns
On Tuesday 19 January, the European Commission presented a communication intended to lay the foundations for such a debate. It proposed new quantified objectives in terms of genome sequencing and vaccination coverage, such as that of vaccinating 80% of health and social care professionals and the elderly by March 2021 and 70% of the adult population by the summer (see EUROPE 12639/1).
“We’ll all try to get there, but in the end each Member State has to set up its own course. This can be different from one Member State to another, or even from one part of the country to another”, a European source reacted the next day, stressing that it should not be a joint objective.
“I think it's good to have an ambitious target, because we know more vaccines are coming in”, added the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon following the presentation to the European Parliament of the priorities of the Portuguese Presidency of the EU Council. “If we look into the amount of doses that are coming, this is doable”, she continued, referring to the vaccines of AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and CureVac (see EUROPE 12638/1).
As for the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has confirmed to EUROPE that it has received a request for “scientific advice” prior to applying for marketing authorisation. But it has not yet started a rolling review. For its part, the Russian sovereign wealth fund has announced on Twitter that it expects its application to be examined in February.
Italy announces its intention to file a lawsuit against Pfizer
At this stage, however, the objective seems far from being achieved. According to Commission figures, the percentage of vaccination is “more than 2% to less than 0.5%” in the different Member States, while some 13 million doses have so far been delivered to EU countries.
Several Member States consider that the centralised authorisation process is too slow. This is what the representatives of Greece, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Austria informed the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, in a joint letter.
Other Member States are concerned about delays in the delivery of already authorised vaccines, which affect their vaccination schedules (as in Belgium and Denmark). At the end of last week, the German-American consortium Pfizer/BioNTech announced a delay of “3 to 4 weeks” before committing itself to limiting the delay to 1 week.
Despite this, Tuesday evening, Italy announced its intention to take legal action against Pfizer “in the coming days”. “The vaccination campaign cannot be slowed down, even less for the administration of the second doses to many Italians who have already received the first”, said the head of the Italian crisis unit for the pandemic, Domenico Arcuri.
For her part, the President of the European Commission was less alarmist, indicating her confidence in Pfizer, given its written commitment to limit delays.
Passport for vaccination, not immunity (at this stage)
EU leaders are also expected to discuss the famous vaccination passport and its future uses. This weekend, Charles Michel had indicated that this was indeed a “sensitive” issue within the EU27 (fearing that this passport would be used as a passport of immunity), but that this was not a reason to “avoid” the debate (see EUROPE 12638/1).
In its Communication, the Commission recalls that “vaccination certificates allow a clear record of each individual’s vaccination history, to ensure the right medical follow-up and the monitoring of possible adverse effects”. Echoing the position expressed by his country of origin, Greece, Vice-President Margarítis Schinás suggested, however, that a political discussion could perhaps envisage other uses, such as facilitating travel and preceding the lifting of restrictions.
However, a European official insists: the priority today is to “avoid blockages that would result from the fact that a certificate is not recognised from one country to another”.
Intra-EU travel restrictions under debate
Intra-EU movement restrictions, such as the requirement for negative PCR tests on arrival in a Member State or mandatory quarantine, will also be discussed by the EU27.
While the French government questioned this weekend the relevance of generalising these negative PCR test requirements in Schengen, but also at the external borders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel also said, on 19 January, that new controls at internal borders would be needed if EU countries do not tighten their measures.
But it will mainly be a matter of coordinating existing travel restrictions or recommending them to countries that have not yet implemented them. On Monday, the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sophie Wilmès, said she hoped that all Member States would agree on a common position to require negative PCR tests for non-residents.
Several countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy require this negative test on arrival, even if the person comes from a Schengen state.
Can the EU27 already agree on this point and can they go further? “We're not going to impose anything, but the idea is to coordinate our action and we can only toughen these measures on the margins”, this source says, because the Member States do not want to sacrifice frontier or transit workers, who must be exempt from any such toughening.
An objective of international solidarity
Even if vaccination in the EU is scarce, Heads of State or Government are also expected to address cooperation with non-Member States on vaccines, “which should be treated as a global public good”, Charles Michel insists in his letter of invitation to the EU27. “We will look at how we can assist our partners in the neighbourhood and beyond”, he says.
“This is not only a matter of solidarity, but also a matter of self-interest”, von der Leyen told the European Parliament. She also announced that “the Commission is proposing a European Vaccine Sharing Mechanism (that) will channel vaccines either directly or through the COVAX Facility”, an aim to ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines for 92 low- and middle-income countries (see EUROPE 12624/38).
She stressed the importance of supporting neighbourhood countries to start vaccinating frontline workers, particularly in the Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership countries and African countries. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean, with Agathe Cherki, Aminata Niang and Solenn Paulic)