On Wednesday 15 December, the European Parliament voted generally in favour of mass vaccination against Covid-19, but was divided on the lifting of patents on vaccines, and there were calls to speed up the fight against disinformation about the pandemic.
In the debate on preparations for the European Council on Thursday 16 December, MEPs discussed extensively the measures to be taken to better combat the coronavirus.
For European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the urgent need is to “continue to increase vaccination rates as rapidly as possible, and this must be done in all age groups, including children”. She mentioned targeted campaigns launched by the European Commission to improve the information available in the Member States on the effectiveness of vaccines. “We will do everything we can to help overcome the scepticism surrounding vaccination”, said the President.
Manfred Weber (EPP, Germany) stressed the need to combat disinformation about Covid-19. “We need to step up our work to ask all social media providers to respect fundamental principles and fight disinformation. If social media providers don’t do it voluntarily, we will have to do it through legislation”, he said.
Iratxe García (S&D, Spain) said that vaccination “is the best weapon we have to fight the virus”. In her country, the vaccination rate is 96% of the target population, whereas in other countries it is less than 40%. “The debate on compulsory vaccination is necessary, but there is no single solution”, said the S&D group chair.
She has again requested an exception to the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) for patents on vaccines. “If we limit ourselves to the Covax system, we will not be able to overcome the production limits imposed on pharmaceuticals”, she said. The Covax programme has only distributed 550 million doses of the 2 billion doses that should have been delivered by the end of this year. “This is not enough”, she said. “The reality is a failure. The G20 countries account for 80% of the vaccines currently produced. While Europe has vaccinated 70% of its population, in Africa it is only 7%”, continued Iratxe García.
Jordi Solé i Ferrando (Greens/EFA, Spain) also denounced the failure of Covax and called for a lifting of intellectual property rights.
“By refusing to lift the patents, Mrs von der Leyen, this is what you wanted to protect at all costs: the money of ‘Big Pharma’ instead of our lives”, criticised Manon Aubry (The Left, France). She criticised the European Commission for “protecting the production monopoly of a handful of multinationals, rather than commandeering their factories and skills and sharing them with the world”.
Stéphane Séjourné (Renew Europe, France) regretted that the assembly “is not in a position to propose a resolution with proposals on Covid-19”. “With the exception of the Socialists, the other groups did not support our proposal to provide a list of solutions in a resolution”, he explained. In his view, “we are experiencing an epidemic of the non-vaccinated, eroded by the disinformation that we can see all over Europe”.
For Marco Zanni (ID, Italy), the only solution would be to find a way to “cohabit” with the virus, and the vaccination campaign is not enough (treatments, targeting new variants, etc.)
Philippe Lamberts (Greens/EFA, Belgium) defended the green taxonomy. “With its regulation on taxonomy, the European Union aims to be a pioneer in more sustainable finance. But it is well known that lobbies from all sides and some Member States, led by France, are pushing hard to have investments in gas and nuclear power recognised as green. It’s like a dream, we’re swimming in a delirium”, he said. He advocated an end to investment in fossil fuels and took a dim view of the problems arising from nuclear power (radioactive waste, astronomical costs of the nuclear fleet). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)