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Routine would be saying too much, but the EU Commission has already had some practice on these matters. On Wednesday, it agreed for the fourth time with a pharmaceutical company on the delivery conditions for a possible corona vaccine. Currently, the authority is negotiating with two other candidates. The fact that the excitement is greater this time than with the contracts already concluded with Astra Zeneca, Sanofi GSG and Johnson & Johnson is due to the moment. The German company Biontech, together with its US partner Pfizer, announced progress in the development of a vaccine on Monday and could therefore become the first company to bring a vaccine to the market. Under the contract that has already been concluded, Biontech could deliver a total of 300 million doses of vaccination, enough for 150 million vaccines, to the EU. “With this fourth contract, we are strengthening an extremely strong portfolio of potential vaccine candidates,” said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Others, however, signed contracts with Biontech before the EU. The United States has ordered 100 million cans and the United Kingdom 40 million. Biontech and Pfizer plan to produce 50 million doses by the end of this year, up from 1.3 billion in 2021. That’s fast. But perhaps not fast enough to be able to serve all contractual partners to their full extent immediately. An EU official said on the subject that the only thing that matters for distribution in the EU is when the European Medicines Agency can approve such a vaccine.
After all, it has already been clarified how vaccines are to be distributed in the European Union: at the same time to all the member states that want it, depending on the respective population size. All 27 members agreed to this during the vaccine procurement talks. This joint approach is the best sign that “we are no longer where we were in January or February,” Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said Wednesday, an allusion to the early months of the corona pandemic. At the time, countries acted in a completely uncoordinated and often selfish way, for example, closing their borders without consultation or not wanting to sell medical protection equipment to each other.
It is true that the Member States have learned something new. They understand better how to deal with the virus, but also with each other. But on the one hand, the coordination of corona measures is still making slow progress, such as agreeing on common testing strategies or lockdown times. The “lack of coherence and coordination in the fight against the pandemic continues to be an obstacle,” said a statement from the Commission. On the other hand, it cannot be ruled out that the member states will act again with the same selfishness in the next pandemic. Therefore, Von der Leyen had already announced in September that he wanted to build a “European Health Union”.
Commissioner Kyriakides has now presented the first elements for such a health union. The EU health authority, ECDC, based in Stockholm will be strengthened. For this, for example, Member States should be obliged to provide reliable, complete and comparable figures. “If this data is not shared, it will lead to inconsistent application of health measures, creating confusion and mistrust among citizens,” Kyriakides said.
Based on these data, the ECDC should in future be able to give Member States specific recommendations for measures, even if they are not binding. Health policy remains a matter for the Member States. In this sense, what the Commission has now presented is already a “significant change”, as Kyriakides put it. For the new tasks, ECDC will also increase in staff, from now around 280 to around 350 employees. For comparison: the Robert Koch Institute, which is “solely” responsible for Germany, has 1200 people. This shows how little responsibility the EU member states have given the EU for health.
The EMA pharmaceutical authority will also be strengthened. For example, it should be tasked with discovering and filling gaps in drug supply.
As a third element, the Commission wants to create a completely new EU authority in the coming year: “Hera”, the typical light EU name (short for “European Health Emergency Response Authority”). Hera’s main task is to anticipate medical and other material requirements for future emergencies. You need to record required production capacities, development sites, and raw material requirements and ensure that supply chain pain points are eliminated.
After all, the EU should be able to declare a health emergency in the future without the intervention of the World Health Organization. This would allow the Union to respond more flexibly to health crises.
To implement these ideas, the Commission has tabled three legislative proposals, which the EU states and the European Parliament must now discuss. The Commission is likely to find allies among MEPs: they had called for such a health union long before the Commission. Consequently, Wednesday’s proposals were received there positively. They are “an important and correct first step,” said Peter Liese, health policy spokesman for the Christian Democrats. His SPD colleague Tiemo Wölken said the international community “finally needs more competition in the health sector to act in a harmonious and coordinated way.”
Kyriakides also knows that capitals are the most important factor in making its proposals a reality: “Our health union will be as strong as the commitment of our member states,” he said. Of course, this doesn’t just apply to upcoming conversations on the three regulations. As one EU official put it: “We are not going to beat this virus with legislation.”
