European leaders again took stock of the Covid-19 pandemic in a video conference on Thursday 25 February, focusing on how to accelerate the production and delivery of vaccines.
A “message of truth and hope” emerged from this conference, summed up the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.
Shot in the arm for pharmaceutical companies
With regard to the message of truth, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, underlined the risk that the new, more contagious variants posed to the Member States. This comes at a time when the British strain has been recorded in 26 Member States, the South African in 14 and the Brazilian in 7 Member States. As for hope, the President of the Commission has maintained the European objective of vaccinating 70% of the population by the summer (see EUROPE 12639/1).
To achieve this goal, the EU, which lags far behind Israel, the UK and the US, must accelerate the pace.
“We need to urgently accelerate the authorisation, production and distribution of vaccines, as well as vaccination. We also need to enhance our surveillance and detection capacity in order to identify variants as early as possible so as to control their spread”, the EU27 stressed in their joint statement adopted at the end of the meeting.
During the round table, the European leaders expressed their support for the working group on vaccines led by Thierry Breton (see other news) and for the ‘HERA Incubator: Anticipating together the threat of COVID-19 variants’. During their exchange, the President of the Commission presented them with a map of Europe with the production sites (41 in all) and those where more could be produced.
See the slides presented: https://bit.ly/3pYclEO
Maintaining the export licensing mechanism
The EU27 confirmed their support for the Coronavirus Vaccine Export Facility launched to ensure that companies meet their commitments to the EU before exporting outside the EU (see EUROPE 12647/2).
“We should look at the possibility of having the same for vaccine components, treatments and diagnostics”, suggested French President Emmanuel Macron.
According to our information, however, several countries, such as Ireland, Sweden and Belgium, have insisted that this mechanism should not prevent companies operating in global production chains from operating.
“If we look at the diagram, the vast majority of exports are made by Pfizer/BioNTech (95%) and the rest by Moderna. Both are honouring their contract”, said Ursula von der Leyen, indicating that she is in discussion with AstraZeneca “where there is room for improvement in terms of contract execution”.
Licencing, testing and WHO
As already indicated in the draft text, the statement of the EU27 mandates that the European Commission draw lessons from the pandemic by June 2021. For their part, they commit themselves to “work to improve EU coordination, in accordance with the Union’s competences under the Treaties”.
This approach was discussed by the President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, earlier in the day. “Some of our contradictions and limitations in our responses to the crisis are largely due to the fact that we are creating, day after day, these competences in a way that shows great political and moral responsibility that compensates for the lack of real powers”, he said. He continued, “You will agree with me that it will no longer be a taboo to want to amend the Treaties to enrich them and ensure that Europe can react effectively”.
It should also be noted that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country has just validated three antigenic tests that can be used at home, has requested that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) also carry out a qualitative evaluation of the self-test.
For his part, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, stated that he has received “more and more support for his international Treaty on Pandemics”, including from non-Member States.
See the Statement of the EU27: http://bit.ly/2P3UBLu (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean, with the editorial staff)