Debate: EU global strategy on COVID- vaccinations
Date: TUESDAY, 19 JANUARY 2021
Speaker: Stella Kyriakides
Language: EN

First of all, I just want to start by saying that we share the many concerns voiced by many of you here in terms of the COVID—19 fatigue and the need for citizens to return to their normality and I wanted to pick up with you an issue that hasn’t been mentioned today but that is extremely important, that we are aware of and that we are looking at and that is the impact that COVID—19 and this pandemic is also having on the mental health of each and every European citizen. Many of you mentioned the issues of production. I just wanted to share with you that the bottleneck at the moment is not in the number of orders that has been placed but in the worldwide shortage of production capacity. Because the strategy has been mentioned a number of times, I wanted to just say that in June we decided with the 27 Member States that the EU would not put all its eggs in one basket and that we would really work with Member States in order to have a diversified portfolio and that has been achieved because we now have six vaccines all with APAs signed, and two so far being authorised as being safe and effective. This shows the power of unity, the power of joining forces and it is what everybody wanted and we were mandated to do: to carry out the negotiations with and on behalf of the 27 Member States. All decisions on which vaccine candidates were taken to invest in and how was taken jointly with everyone agreeing on the approach of building a broad portfolio. In October, there was a communication by the Commission asking all the Member States to be prepared for their rollout for their vaccine strategies and I have said many times in this Parliament that finding a safe and effective vaccine would not be a silver bullet; it would not be possible for us to end the pandemic in one day. We are working as closely as we can with all Member States, of course, in order to be able to ensure that rollouts move as quickly as possible and in the communication that we issuing later on today we’re asking Member States to send information to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) at least twice a week so we are able to monitor the situation. So we now have two vaccines, which have been approved and are being progressively distributed at increasing speed. Every day and every vaccination counts and the stock of vaccines delivered need to be used as quickly as possible. We are working with Member States in order to support them with this, but let’s not all forget that this is the first time in history that we are all undertaking such a mass vaccination campaign of this size and of this complexity and we do face already and they will be more challenges down the road, but we are there to support Member States and solve these problems as they appear. Some of you mentioned the situation that appeared a few days ago with BioNTech—Pfizer. I just wanted to let you know that, from the moment that this situation appeared, I was in calls continuously with the health ministers and we called a meeting immediately of the steering committee together and we are working continuously with BioNTech—Pfizer in order to support them to develop more production capacities in the EU. We are fully mobilised – both the European Medicines Agency and the Commission – to support the ramping up of production as soon as possible. In terms of the importance of doing this together, I have said before that joining forces is the only way to ensure that all Member States had access to so many different vaccines at the same time and, as many of you said, at the same price. But now we need to really work as quickly as possible to roll these out and fairness has always been a crucial principle in our strategy. We were very clear about this and we are now asking Member States to move as quickly as possible to be able to reach citizens. You mentioned issues of bilateral contracts and parallel negotiations. I will repeat what I have said many times: the purpose and the guiding principle of our vaccine strategy is to avoid parallel negotiations. This would undermine the strategy’s effectiveness. We now have two approved vaccines. We have negotiated delivery of 300 million additional doses of BioNTech—Pfizer. We are awaiting the scientific assessment of the AstraZeneca vaccine at the end of this month and the Johnson & Johnson is under review. We therefore consider that, with these supplies, we will be able to address fully the needs of Member States. All Member States joined the EU strategy for the COVID—19 vaccine and this implies both rights and obligations, and so far all Member States are part of the contracts we have negotiated. So, it is not legally possible for them to negotiate bilateral contracts with the companies in the EU portfolio and I have reminded Member States of these rights and obligations. Many of you mentioned transparency. I will be as brief as possible. We are, as a Commission, 100% in favour of transparency, we can show absolute flexibility on this. We have been working with companies; BioNTech—Pfizer has agreed to release its contract and we are now working with the other companies to move forward but we cannot unilaterally decide to disclose confidential information, such as information on prices, under the contracts unless the companies agree. Liability was used. Liability under the conditional marketing authorisations remains with the manufacturers and holders and they are responsible for the products and the safe use and this is the importance of the conditional marketing authorisation that we had followed. In terms of the global aspect, I believe that when it comes to dealing with a global pandemic of these proportions, we should not be speaking about competition between countries. We saw from the beginning that the ‘first us’ approach does not work and we need to have global solidarity in order to really be a shield against COVID—19. This is why we launched the coronavirus global response; this is why we are strong supporters of access to the COVID—19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator. The issue of diagnostics and therapeutics was also mentioned. We need to work on that as well for all countries and not just vaccines. Global access and equal access to vaccines is the reason why we have joined COVAX and we will continue to support it. In terms of delivery, in today’s communication we will be stressing that we need to work with companies to deliver a clear and transparent schedule for deliveries. I want to just say here that the practical arrangements of the deliveries are laid down in the contracts between the company and the Member States and we are doing our best really to help this on a daily basis, constantly on the phone trying to help our Member States with issues that appear. Wherever feasible we do step in to offer support to the Member States and to liaise with the company to help ensure that engagements are respected. The variants were mentioned. This is a very important issue, thank you for raising it. Currently there is no evidence that the BioNTech—Pfizer and Moderna vaccines would not be effective against this variant but information is still being collected and analysed and ongoing. I’m in constant contact with the European Medicines Agency for this. Typically, viruses mutate so we need to follow it up very carefully, and again today in the communication, we are going to be urging Member States to do more genomic sequencing across the EU to identify variants. This is crucial in order for us to share this information so that we are able to follow it. There is no evidence so far that it does not cause more serious illness or that the vaccines are less effective but it does appear that there is evidence that they are transmitted more quickly. And, last but not least, vaccination certificates. This is a common approach across the EU to monitor vaccine effectiveness, it may be needed once citizens are vaccinated. This could reinforce the success of the vaccination programmes in Member States. We are in active discussions with the Member States on how we will move forward with this because they need to be recognised across all Member States and we could also set a global example. We welcome all inputs from Member States, including that we had recently from Greece, it is an important issue and it is going to be one of the issues as well as the rollout strategies that will be discussed this week at the European Council with the Heads of State. I will end here. I want to thank you once again for a very important and informative discussion, and I want to say what I have been saying from the beginning, that we will leave no stone unturned until we exit this pandemic because we all understand how important it is that citizens and economies and societies are able to return to a way of life as we knew before. Thank you again for the opportunity.