Over the past months, vaccines have emerged as the silver bullet for the coronavirus crisis. One, or rather two, shots in the arms of Europeans are expected to save lives, restart the economy, and boost the mental health of millions worn out by endless lockdowns.
Rarely was a product as eagerly awaited. The pharmaceutical companies engaged in the race to develop and distribute vaccines have become household names and trial results breaking news, and the first-vaccinated senior citizens were celebrated like national heroes.
No wonder that news in January 2021 about delays in the rollout of vaccines then led to bitter disappointment in Europe and a vicious blame game involving governments, the pharmaceutical companies concerned, and the EU—for whom the stakes are particularly high.
The EU’s coronavirus vaccination program had been hailed as one of the great breakthroughs of 2020. Now, it risks turning into a gigantic political boomerang.
Following the undignified scramble for protective equipment such as masks in the pandemic’s early stages in spring 2020—when EU members adopted national export bans and tried to outbid each other in global markets—the European Commission pushed hard for adopting a radically different approach on vaccine procurement.
The twenty-seven would act together from the start, supporting the development and production of the vaccines that would then be bought collectively and distributed among member states according to population size.
Eventually, all member states were persuaded to come on board, including those that had already initiated their own procurement processes. Over several months, the commission negotiated contracts with six pharmaceutical companies and assembled a portfolio of 2.3 billion doses. As far as one can tell—since most of the contracts remain secret—it used the market power of the EU to secure favorable conditions on pricing and liability.
However, there was a price to pay for the collective approach: speed. The commission had never done pharmaceutical procurement at this scale. The health authorities of the twenty-seven had to be closely involved, because national governments retain primary responsibility in this area. Inevitably, Brussels did not move at the same speed as Washington, London, or Jerusalem.
In hindsight, the EU should probably have invested more in ramping up production capacity at an early stage—but the process involved a lot of uncertainty, because nobody knew which vaccine would be effective in the end.
Also, in order to reassure a partly vaccine-sceptic European public, the EU—unlike the UK—did not resort to emergency procedures but insisted on full certification of the vaccines through the European Medicines Agency.
Based only on these constraints, the EU would already have fallen behind in vaccination rates compared to Israel, the UK, and the United States. But production shortfalls in January for vaccine producers Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca forced member states to drastically revise their vaccination plans, putting the EU even further behind.
Under heavy criticism from member states, the commission accused AstraZeneca of not fulfilling its contract and announced the imposition of export controls for vaccines produced inside the EU. Initially, this was to involve controls also on the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, a major blunder that was quickly corrected but demonstrated the extreme stress levels at the top of the commission.
In all likelihood, the shortage of coronavirus vaccines on the continent will continue for a number of months. The EU’s goal of having 70 percent of the population vaccinated by summer 2021 will be difficult to reach. Inevitably, the question arises: Would it have been better to leave vaccine procurement to national authorities?
Nobody can answer this question conclusively, but it seems likely that—for the EU as a whole—the collective approach will pay off in the end. Without it, the pharmaceutical companies would have been in a stronger negotiating position vis-à-vis individual member states. Vaccines would have been more expensive and supply more uncertain, particularly for the smaller and poorer member states.
It is true that some of the strongest players, such as Germany or France, would probably be in a better position today had they run their own procurement program. But one must also consider the political fallout of another bout of medical nationalism: a survival-of-the-fittest-and-fastest approach to such a life-and-death issue would have fundamentally undermined the solidarity that is at the heart of the European project.
Acting together on vaccines was the right choice for the EU, although avoidable mistakes were made. Rather than engaging in a blame game, the EU, the member states, and the pharmaceutical companies now need to work together to ramp up production as rapidly as possible.
Rather than being discouraged by the mishaps, we should draw encouragement from the fact that—thanks to unprecedented cooperation between science, business, and government—we now have a weapon to defeat the coronavirus pandemic. That same cooperation will help us wield it effectively.
Comments(8)
Hey dear Carnegie Europe, as far as per international right Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel. Tel Aviv is the capital. "Inevitably, Brussels did not move at the same speed as Washington, London, or Jerusalem."
In the end we might all be dead, if the virus keeps mutating, like it appears to do due to the size of population where it spread. A virus which appears to be asymptomatic for half of the infections, with the possibility of a mutant to reinfect a highly mobile host, appears to be something only evolution mechanisms can create and spread. mRNA, adenovirus, NovaVax (could they do multispike nanoparticles?) technologies are, by design, tunable to mutants, but it will not be easy to produce and vaccinate large populations quick enough, and possibly several times. The author incorrectly identifies vaccines as the number one defensive weapon, that would be the humble mask/civic spirit combination. Vaccines are also critical, but only if they are deployed at scale, limiting the number of infected hosts, and thus mutations; the race with the virus can be very well lost. Unfortunately, the US and UK are not yet doing that great. The article references a 03/2020 analysis of the complete lack of NATO preparation to handle a simple pandemic. “Asked whether NATO has an estimation of the stocks of masks and personal protective equipment in its member states across Europe, a NATO official told EURACTIV such stock-taking “is the responsibility of national authorities” and referred to the respective national contact points.” Is this the same official who will answer questions on civil defense, or decontamination after a limited tactical nuclear exchange? Plus, that was PPE for medical personnel, not for the average taxpayer. It is worse. FT 2021: “The factory floor at the Serum Institute was humming on a visit to the plant in January as vaccine vials were being filled and capped. Every minute, 500 vials were filled by machines imported from Germany and Italy, supervised by workers wearing white PPE suits.” That Institute is not in the EU, it is in India. The EU, with posted workers, 92.4 million people living in poverty, whose members compete in a “race to the bottom” by lowering taxes, wages, and worker protections to attract investors and improve external cost competitiveness (De Schutter, UN rapporteur). This EU couldn’t in a year build new vaccine, PPE factories, with this level of poverty and unemployment. Will the EU train the 20 million children at risk of poverty to compete with China and India in AI, where the EU talks about creating norms; how about biotech, and the future in general? 476, the Western Roman Empire ended, an EU precursor; hopefully the EU will do better.
All good and well but it would have been better if the Commission would have done the following - And this is not hindsight but common sense: Work out with Member States a vaccination roll out programme (including logistics) much earlier in the year, full well knowing a vaccine would be coming Q42020 or Q12021 the latest Work with Member States experts (those who know how to negotiate with pharma) a contract negotiation approach Pay a premium price for whatever moves in vaccines land (being the richest area in the world we can afford it) in return for priority access and delivery Negotiate with pharma to temporary lift certain data protection rules to allow vaccines companies to collect data from vaccinated Europeans (what Israel did was very smart but if Europe would have done it for its 300 million + citizens the data collected would be far more interesting/robust) as part of any purchase contract Approve vaccines earlier while taking on liability provisions from companies - and to mitigate risk take a staggered to the label Control export of vaccines out of the EU (irrespectively of any Northern Ireland protocols or other sensitivities - this is not about erecting a border in Ireland but purely to control one good - vaccines)
Well Stefan I thinking what you have said is wishful thinking maybe or hopeful, as going by the form recently its all a muddle, I agree all will likely come good in the end. The problems with delays is new variants have got more time to react and and change according to our scientists so these muddled delays are a danger. If a certain variant that overrules our vaccine's and they become ineffective we are back near square one again, so rushing to get as many people vaccinated as possible is the smart thing. You're take on this in my view is from a political or diplomatic point of view, but from the immunologist's view I have read recently the faster we move is the way we should go or many more poor souls may die, so lets not dither and invest more and help the medical drug companies all the tools they need as quick as we can, unblock political, diplomatic or other get all effective vaccines made at volume including Sputnik or the China or Indian one. Thats my take on this hopefully the Astra Zenicka vaccine does not get held up again, but there seems to be a few political leaders giving there 10 cents worth like Macron who say certain vaccines are not effective for the over 60's with little knowledge of the harm they are doing to peoples perspective on taking it. The EU must get there act together very quickly as last week we had a mess and a diplomatic screw up, Mrs Von Der Leyen is rightly in the firing line its her mistakes that caused this mess.
This is a joke this article its just supposition, lets have some truths here the EU stuffed up end of story. Give us all a break and come clean on the truth Mrs Von Der Leyan is not up to the job, time for her to admit the mistakes on vaccines she has caused and consider her position anything more to placate this truth is fantasy.
Who is Von Der Leyan?
Should Be Von Der Lying!! to stress Ville's mute silly point my English spelling is not perfecto!!! as can be said but trolling this is name spell is stupidocious, sorry Ville I made this new English word up.
Very poor for the EU I am 72 lucky for vaccination before April, not good.
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