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The price of the various European Union coronavirus vaccines was finally made public for a short time on Thursday, after a Belgian minister accidentally tweeted the information.
Eva De Bleeker, Belgian Secretary of State for Budgets, published a table with the cost of each vaccine purchased by the EU, as well as the number of doses purchased by her government. He quickly deleted the tweet, but the Belgian news site HLN took a screenshot of the data and posted it.
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The European Commission had previously said that it could not disclose prices to the public due to commercial confidentiality agreements. EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides told MEPs in November: “The Commission is not legally empowered to disclose information contained in contracts.”
However, some EU lawmakers have called for greater transparency, saying that the vaccine deals involved taxpayer money and therefore the details should be open to the public, particularly as countries will place their orders for the various vaccines. individually.
The Commission has finalized deals with six producers and finalized initial talks with a seventh drugmaker on Thursday. According to the HLN screenshot, the vaccine prices, ranging from $ 2.18 to $ 18, were as follows:
The screenshot of De Bleeker’s tweet also shows that Belgium will spend $ 341 million on more than 33 million doses. She was posting the information in response to criticism from the opposition N-VA party about the government’s budget for vaccines. “This year 33.5 million vaccines will be purchased,” he wrote on Twitter: “And we are going to pay a total of 279 million euros [$341m] for this.”
The post was deleted 30 minutes later. De Bleeker was subsequently summoned to explain her actions in the Belgian House of Representatives, and opposition politicians condemned her actions as a possible breach of contractual confidentiality clauses. According to HLN, he told the camera: “One of the pillars of my policy is transparency and I have been a little too transparent, perhaps.”
When the Belgian news site asked if the European Commission could confirm the prices, the bloc executive said: “We will not comment on what happened in Belgium, but the prices of vaccines are confidential.” It remains to be seen whether vaccine producers will treat De Bleeker’s actions as a breach of contract and take action.
