The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced, on Wednesday 14 September, that she and US President Joe Biden would be organising an international summit on investments in RNA-Messenger vaccines, to follow up on investments in production in Africa, but also to “announce new projects”, notably in Latin America.
“We will team up with our friends in the US and with other G7 partners”, said Ms von der Leyen in her State of the Union address. This announcement was part of the speech dedicated to strengthening alliances with “democratic countries”.
In the context of the war in Ukraine and the fact that the African Union remains neutral in the conflict, the EU had recently underlined its intention to promote the strengths of the EU/Africa strategic partnership to African partners (see EUROPE 13011/4).
The EU has already invested over €1 billion in six African hubs for the production of these experimental vaccines. This is done by transferring “world-class technology”, said the Commission President (see EUROPE 12918/30, 12894/1).
Ms von der Leyen mentioned the ongoing construction of “two plants, in Rwanda and Senegal”, adding that: “We are now replicating this approach across Latin America as part of a larger engagement strategy”, which requires “investments on a global scale”.
See the Commission’s Letter of Intent: https://aeur.eu/f/32e (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)