European summit seeks to speed up vaccine distribution

PARIS.– Faced with delays in vaccine deliveries and the violent progression of new strains of coronavirus, the heads of state and government of the 27 countries of the European Union (EU) gathered today on the first day of a virtual summit to decide on joint action on the vaccination campaign.

“Acelerar la vacunación en toda la UE significa acelerar el proceso de autorización de nuevas vacunas, así como su producción y sus entregas”, explained in su carta de invitación a la reunión Charles Michel, presidente del Consejo Europeo, that reúne to the directors of The union.

At present, only three vaccines have been authorized in the EU, those of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca laboratories. The European Commission has signed purchase contracts with three other companies: Sanofi-GSK, CureVac and Johnson & Johnson. All are currently at different stages of evaluation as to their effectiveness or authorization.

The summit takes place two days after news of further delays in vaccine delivery was announced. After the delays of Pfizer and Moderna, this time it is the AstraZeneca laboratory which declares production difficulties. The Anglo-Swedish company said it had been forced to turn to production plants outside the continent to honor promised deliveries.

AstraZeneca “is working to increase the productivity of its supply chain in the EU” and will use “its global capacity to ensure delivery of 180 million doses to the EU in the second half of the year,” a spokesperson for the company said.

The pharmaceutical group had already sparked controversy – and the anger of EU officials – by initially saying it could not deliver the promised 400 million doses to 27 countries due to insufficient production capacity at its EU factories. This figure means 75% less than the doses promised for the first quarter of 2021.

European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides has ruled AstraZeneca’s new timetable “unacceptable” and has forced companies that produce Covid-19 vaccines in the EU to report any exports of their products to countries third. The 27 are even expected to study other pressure measures in these two days.

Despite everything, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, declared herself “optimistic” and “confident” on the objective of vaccinating 70% of the 448 million Europeans before the end of the northern summer. The 27 will also need to identify potential partnerships to increase vaccine production and distribution within the EU.

According to Maros Sefcovic, Vice-President of the European Commission, “So far 40.7 million doses of the three authorized vaccines have reached Member States”, and “an additional $ 300 million is expected to arrive in the second quarter of the year.”

The summit will also have to agree on the creation of a possible “vaccination passport”, on which certain States are very favorable, such as Greece or Austria, and others are trying to stop, such as France.

On the other hand, faced with the worrying progression of new variants of Covid, the summit will need to strike the right balance between vaccination campaigns, movement restrictions and the free flow of goods and services in the Schengen area. In a statement, the 27th issued a call tonight to “maintain firm limits” on traffic.

“The epidemiological situation remains serious and the new strains pose additional challenges. We must therefore maintain firm restrictions and redouble our efforts to speed up the distribution of vaccines, ”the text said. In other words, non-essential movements within the EU will continue to be restricted, as will the ban on entering or leaving the European area.

On the second day of the summit, the 27 will analyze the security and defense strategy on Friday in order to improve the collective response to the challenges posed by hybrid threats or cyberattacks. To this end, the summit will host the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Jens Stoltenberg.

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