Debate: The state of play of the EU’s COVID- Vaccination Strategy
Date: WEDNESDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 2021
Speaker: Stella Kyriakides
Language: EN

We are doing our best to fight the virus. Across the Union and across the world it is now abundantly clear that we will only meet this challenge if we all stick together. We are all fighting to defeat a common enemy: COVID. The vaccines against this pandemic are the key to unlocking the door out of this crisis. We will continue to work day and night to ensure that these vaccines are brought to our citizens and by the end of the summer we want 70% of adult Europeans to be vaccinated. We want to ensure that this happens in a fair and equitable way, in a way which ensures that this strategic public good is distributed as quickly as possible to all — to all our Member States, fairly and equally, regardless of size, always with their full agreement and in full transparency.  A total of 26 million vaccine doses have been delivered in Europe since December, and more than 17 million people have been vaccinated in every corner of Europe. The pace of vaccinations can, and should, increase and we are doing our best to ensure that this happens in the coming weeks.  Let us recall the three fundamental points which are at the very basis of the debate today. Firstly, that it was right that we Europeans procured the vaccine together in solidarity. Secondly, that we have a moral duty to show the same solidarity to partners in our neighbourhood and across the world. And thirdly, that we are already drawing on the lessons of what we can improve — the regulatory environment, the industrial ecosystem, the operational environment and the predictability our Member States should have to roll out vaccinations. We have drawn these lessons and we are already acting on them.  Now let me turn to some of your questions. Firstly, on transparency. I have stated several times in this House that, with the EU vaccine strategy, we have always strived for as much transparency as possible every single step of the way. We owe it to our institutions and our citizens to be transparent and accountable in our decisions, and this is the only way we can build trust in this critical area.  In order to enhance our cooperation even further, and as mentioned by the President, we propose the creation of a contact group on vaccines. This will allow us to regularly exchange views on the most pressing issues and, most importantly, to work together on finding solutions.  I welcome the fact that following our request, three of our contracts, as you know, have been made publicly available. Tomorrow the Johnson & Johnson contract will be available in a reading room. We will persist with other companies in order to obtain their agreement to make our contracts available to the Members of the Parliament and public at large as quickly as possible.  When it comes to vaccine production and deliveries, there are indeed many lessons to be learned from this process, and it’s perfectly natural for everyone to expect a rapid and seamless roll-out of vaccines. This is precisely why we had spread our investments across a broad portfolio of vaccine candidates and why we fixed the number of doses and delivery schedules in our agreements. I can assure you that we acted as fast as we could with, and on behalf of, all 27 Member States when it comes to securing doses and investing in production capacity with companies in looking at safety.  This was never about only prices or being difficult. It was about ensuring that our citizens would have access to the safest and most effective vaccines, that we would have strong provisions on liability, and that we had all the safety procedures in place. And all these are vital. We did expect that there would be hurdles along the way, including unexpected ones. We can for sure go back and find things that we could have done differently, even better, but now our focus is on ensuring that vaccines reach our citizens and the rest of the world as quickly as possible, working with companies to eliminate bottlenecks in production and also looking at adjusting and stepping up vaccine production for the new variants.  What we need now is an immediate response to the urgent threat of coronavirus variants and what we need going forward is the capacity at EU level to produce vaccines independently. As of next week, we will launch a biodefence preparedness programme, our first action under the new Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA). We will launch a public-private collaboration to develop and manufacture vaccines at scale to respond to the threat of new variants more forcefully. We know that preparedness is everything, but preparedness requires foresight, both in the current crisis and for any future ones.  Honourable Members, we fully share your sense of urgency. We’re on the same side and there are many pressing issues at play. You have raised many of them today and there will undoubtedly be more challenges ahead. The emergence of new variants only adds to this emergency and the sense of urgency. President von der Leyen said that this is a marathon, and it is. And we need to show the same level of determination, resilience and unity. This is why we need to cooperate closely with this House to find sustainable solutions to these crucial issues, because we are in this together. Collaboration and trust offer the surest path to overcoming this crisis, and this is what true solidarity is about.