The first words of Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union address on Wednesday 15 September were, unsurprisingly, devoted to the health crisis and the means by which the Europeans have dealt with it. While the EU has reached its target of vaccinating 70% of its adult population and has “met [its] global commitments”, the President of the European Commission, although proud of this achievement, acknowledged that there is still “no reason” to “rest on our laurels”.
“Our first and most urgent priority is to speed up global vaccination”, she said, citing a duty of “justice” and “solidarity” to close the immunisation gap between rich and poor countries.
“With less than 1% of global doses administered in low-income countries, the scale of the injustice and the level of urgency are obvious. This is one of the great geopolitical issues of our time”, said Mrs von der Leyen.
To complement the delivery of 250 million doses already pledged by the EU before the end of the year (see EUROPE 12768/12), it has announced “a further donation of 200 million additional doses by the middle of next year”. She went on to add, “This is an investment in solidarity, but also in global health”.
Doubts about the efficacy of vaccines against the delta variant - as evidenced by the booster doses administered by many rich countries against the advice of the WHO, which wants to prioritise donations to poor countries - were not raised.
Like Mrs von der Leyen, MEPs hailed the vaccines as “a great success” for the EU or, like Jordi Solé (Greens/EFA, Spain), invoked the need for solidarity in view of the “millions of doses in our fridges while other countries have not started vaccinating”.
Pointing out that in Africa only 3% of the population has received at least one dose, Liberal leader Dacian Cioloș (Renew Europe, Romania) recalled the letter his political group sent to Mrs von der Leyen to increase the EU’s support to the Covax Global Facility by €4 billion - currently €2.9 billion (see EUROPE 12788/1).
“Seeing how the budget could accelerate immunisation in the poorest countries is what a geopolitical Europe could be”, he said, before being applauded.
Continuing vaccination in the EU
While she focused primarily on the urgency of global vaccination, the President was also quick to draw MEPs’ attention to the delays in the EU and the “worrying discrepancies” in vaccination rates between the EU-27.
According to data posted online by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control on the same day, only 23% of adults in Bulgaria have been vaccinated. In Romania, it is around 33%, while in Portugal, for example, almost 97% of adults received a first dose, and 87% are fully vaccinated.
“We need to keep up the momentum”, she said, pointing out that there is no shortage of vaccines at European level. “We have secured 1.8 billion additional doses. This is enough for ourselves and our neighbourhood when booster shots are needed”, she added, referring to the third purchase contract concluded at the end of May between the European Commission and the pharmaceutical company BioNTech/Pfizer (see EUROPE 12723/3).
Preparing for future pandemics
The third and final priority in the health area is preparedness for possible future crises.
In order to orchestrate this preparation, the President recalled the forthcoming implementation of the European Health Emergency Response and Preparedness Authority: HERA.
The European Commission will unveil details of the Authority on Thursday, which the President described as a “huge asset to respond faster and better to future health threats”.
However, a draft version of the regulation, which appeared in the press a few days before the State of the Union speech, raised questions about the effectiveness of the Authority (see EUROPE 12790/1).
Beyond HERA, the President referred to the establishment of a “new EU-wide health preparedness and resilience mission” - a mission she intends to support financially with a “Team Europe investment of €50 billion by 2027”.
The budget allocated to HERA should be on the order of €6 billion.
Finally, referring to the lessons learned from the pandemic, the President called for better healthcare for all Europeans and announced the presentation of a new European healthcare strategy.
Lifting of patents
While the President did not raise the issue of patents on Covid-19 vaccines, The Left group did raise the issue in response to the EU speech. “This Parliament, 140 former heads of State, as well as Nobel Prize winners and around 100 countries are calling for the lifting of patents on Covid-19 vaccines. When will you stop blocking this lifting?”, asked MEP Martin Schirdewan (Germany).
Associations also reacted to the President’s speech, such as the international NGO ONE, which deplores the European blockage at the World Trade Organization (WTO): “To reduce the spread of the virus and the urgency of the variants, no effort should be spared, including support for the lifting of patents”, said Emily Wigens, EU Director of the ONE campaign.
The day before, the EU reiterated its opposition to this proposal at a WTO meeting (see EUROPE 12790/17).
To view the State of the Union address: https://bit.ly/3lrxnvx
To consult the European Commission’s letter of intent for 2022: https://bit.ly/3EmADkf (Original version in French by Aminata Niang, Agathe Cherki and Léa Marchal)