Five MEPs from the Greens/EFA group announced on Friday 29 October that they had taken their case to the EU Court of Justice to obtain access to all EU contracts for advance purchases of Covid-19 vaccines.
Three of these contracts have so far been made public by the European Commission (see EUROPE 12639/7, 12654/17).
Despite repeated calls from the European Parliament, however, their content was only partially disclosed: entire paragraphs were crossed out, concealing details of payments made by the European Commission, the price of vaccine doses, and liability and compensation regimes in the event of possible harm.
The five MEPs - Margrete Auken (Denmark), Tilly Metz (Luxembourg), Jutta Paulus (Germany), Michèle Rivasi (France) and Kim van Sparrentak (Netherlands) - justify their request on the grounds that “there is an overriding public interest in the disclosure of the requested information”.
“European elected representatives must be able to control how the six pharmaceutical companies have used the €2.5 billion in advances on vaccines. This is European taxpayers’ money. These contracts are about public health and there is a strong public interest in ensuring that the information they contain on pricing, liability for side effects, delivery schedules and other essential information is transparent and publicly available”, commented Michèle Rivasi on Friday.
The complainants also claim that some of the details contained in the agreements “do not qualify as information of commercial interest” (see EUROPE 12793/11). The European Commission, on the other hand, has from the outset justified its refusal to publish the contracts in full by invoking non-disclosure clauses and the legitimate interests of the companies.
All political groups in the Parliament have already repeatedly denounced the opacity of the European vaccine procurement process (see EUROPE 12793/11). In addition, on 21 October, 458 MEPs supported a resolution demanding, among other things, that an unredacted version of the contracts be published without delay (see EUROPE 12817/14).
See the legal action: https://bit.ly/3w6PXxX (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)