The main political groups in the European Parliament are calling on the European Commission to be more transparent about orders for Covid-19 vaccines. After the President of the Commission participated in their internal meetings, the EPP, S&D, Renew Europe and Greens/EFA groups welcomed the fact that Ursula von der Leyen would come to publicly debate the issue during the plenary session on Wednesday 10 February.
“We are proceeding step by step”, explained the President of the S&D Group, Iratxe García Pérez, on Thursday 4 February, the day after the exchange between her group and the President of the European Commission. After Ms von der Leyen’s speech in plenary, “the next step will be to invite the CEOs of pharmaceutical companies to the conference of presidents”, she added.
The various groups are of the opinion that the Commission has made mistakes. The co-president of the Greens-EFA, Belgian Philippe Lamberts, identified two in particular: on the one hand, Ms von der Leyen “accepted the diktat of the industry in terms of confidentiality of contracts” and, on the other, she made a mistake on the Northern Ireland issue.
Does this mean she has to resign? No, Mr Lamberts replied, noting a gender bias in the severity of the criticism.
However, although they have been lenient, the various group presidents have nevertheless demanded more transparency. “Any delays should come with immediate and clear explanations. We need to build trust and confidence”, said the president of the Renew Europe group, Romanian Dacian Cioloș.
What is the status of vaccination?
Three days after its launch, the vaccination monitoring tool set up by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control is still not fully operational, as not all States have shared their data yet (see EUROPE 12648/1).
On 4 February, the Commission asked the European Commissioner for Industry, Thierry Breton, to lead a new working party on vaccines, with the aim of identifying and removing bottlenecks in production chains and adapting them to new variants of the coronavirus.
At this stage, the Commission has signed contracts for Covid-19 vaccines with six pharmaceutical companies. It is negotiating with Novavax and Valneva.
On Wednesday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced that it would begin a rolling review of Novavax’s candidate vaccine. Barring any surprises, the company is therefore expected to apply for a conditional marketing authorisation in the coming weeks or months.
As for Valneva, the French Minister of Industry, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, had indicated at the beginning of the week on Twitter that a marketing authorisation in the EU could come about “by the end of 2021 at the earliest”.
There remains the Russian vaccine, Sputnik V, which has already been unilaterally authorised by the Hungarian authorities and which is now the focus of attention in several countries, such as Germany, France and Spain. For the time being, EMA is still in discussion with the manufacturer, the Gamaleya Institute, a source has confirmed. The latter also stated that the Russian vaccine did not necessarily have to be produced in Europe to be authorised in the country, the presence of a simple subsidiary being sufficient.
However, the source added, a Covid-19 vaccine entirely manufactured outside the EU must be distributed via a manufacturing or importing site established in the EU and must comply with the qualitative and quantitative criteria of Directive 2001/83/EC (Medicines Code). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)