J. Scott Marcus, Senior Fellow at the Bruegel Institute, welcomed, on Monday 22 February, the decision to centralise vaccines at European level in front of MEPs from the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO). However, the implementation of this decision is “ clearly” problematic, he said.
“The decision to centralise was a good decision, the implementation has been horribly flawed”, summed up the senior fellow researcher, pressed by several MEPs, including Jordi Cañas (Renew Europe, Spain), Anna Cavazzini (Greens/EFA, Germany) and Anne-Sophie Pelletier (The Left, France).
In presenting a study he co-authored on the impact of Covid-19 on the Internal Market, Mr Marcus explained that centralising vaccine procurement was the right solution to avoid competition between Member States. He took as an example the US case, in which the federal States were competing for the purchase of fans, among other things, which had particularly detrimental effects.
However, for him, joint purchasing needs to be improved, as the European response has been too slow. The objective is to put an end to the pandemic as quickly as possible: the cost per person of the pandemic is around 18,000 euros per year, he recalled, based on an US study, while the purchase of an individual dose of a vaccine is less than 30 euros. The EU’s Emergency Support Instrument (ESI) needs to be better equipped to give more room for manoeuvre, he said.
The management of production chains must be better done, again according to Mr. Marcus, but without necessarily resorting to sanctions against producers, because it is necessary to take into account the number of unknowns that cannot be controlled by companies, he insisted.
Tracing software. The researcher also highlighted the failure of tracing software in Europe due to the respect of private data, which has deprived Europe of a tool that has been effective in South-East Asia. A discussion on this subject will have to be launched once the pandemic is over and things are more calm, he stressed. In any case, he said that the EU should ensure interoperability of national software, which, for him, the European Commission had tried to do too late.
Vaccination passport. Turning to the issue of tourism, Mr Marcus clearly supported the need for a vaccination passport, possibly including a mention of a recent screening test. However, he acknowledged that the issue of passport privileges was going to be a sensitive one.
Covax. Turning to the issue of international cooperation, Mr Marcus insisted that the Union should work to strengthen the effort in the framework of the mechanism for global access to Covid-19 vaccines. In fact, according to him, the financial volumes committed are not sufficient.
To consult the study: https://bit.ly/37H4Vzv (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)