On an official visit to Senegal, on Wednesday 9 and Thursday 10 February, to strengthen the bilateral partnership with “one of the driving forces of the region and a privileged partner for the EU” and to prepare the summit between the EU and the African Union, of which Senegal has held the rotating presidency since 5 February, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is accompanied by five European Commissioners.
Upon her arrival, she signed, with the Insitut Pasteur de Dakar and Senegal’s Minister of the Economy, Planning and Cooperation, Amadou Hott, the financing agreement for the ‘Madiba’ project, which aims to produce 300 million messenger RNA vaccines each year. And to announce the commitment of “an additional €125 million” from the EU. This is “to ensure proper distribution of doses, to train medical teams, but also to strengthen analysis and sequencing capacity, to stay ahead of the virus”, she said at the signing ceremony broadcast on the Commission’s website.
€300 million had previously been committed by the EU for this project. In July 2021, an agreement was signed between Senegal, the European Commission, three Member States (France, Germany and Belgium) and the European Investment Bank to accelerate preparations for the monthly production of 25 million doses by the end of 2022 (see EUROPE 12759/21).
Mrs von der Leyen recalled that the Commission had announced last year that it would invest €1 billion to support the production of vaccines on the African continent, including experimental mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 and against tuberculosis and malaria. “We are working with the Africans and BioNTech ," she said, calling mRNA technology “crucial”.
Speaking on behalf of the Senegalese President, Minister Hott expressed the hope that “by June 2022, early 2023, we will have the entire value chain of the Covid-19 vaccine, with a capacity of 300 million doses per year for export throughout West Africa”.
However, in the immediate term, “dose sharing is an absolute necessity”, said Mrs von der Leyen, recalling that ‘Team Europe’ has shared nearly 145 million doses with Africa and will have shared “ at least 450 million by this summer”.
The EU, G20 and WHO goal remains to vaccinate 70% of the world’s population by mid-2022, with Africa as a priority (see EUROPE 12855/2). The Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, says that the EU is on track to meet the EU’s target of sharing 700 million doses by then.
On Thursday, Senegalese President Macky Sall will host Mrs von der Leyen and all the commissioners present - Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager (Competition), Thierry Breton (responsible for vaccines for the EU), Ylva Johansson (Migration), Jutta Urpilainen and Kadri Simson (Energy) - for a working lunch. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)