At his first European Council as head of the Italian government, Mario Draghi pressure increases on Brussels to speed up on the vaccination front. A tough debut for the former central banker, who made two requests to the other 26 leaders connected by videoconference: sanction the pharmaceutical companies that do not respect the deliveries foreseen in the contracts, possibly even reaching the export block, and postpone donations to better times of vaccines to non-European countries.
The EU's common goal remains to scale up vaccine supply efforts while maintaining tight restrictions. This means limiting non-essential travel within and outside the Union, while ensuring the movement of goods and services in the single market. Despite the difficulties, Europe continues to support that by the summer it is possible to arrive at vaccinate 70% of the population community. Difficult, given that since 27 December 51 and a half million doses have arrived in the member countries, and we have used them to vaccinate just 8% of Europeans.
During the Council, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that vaccines will keep us company for years, due to the continuous mutations of the virus. This is also why the French president, Emmanuel Macron, wants to bet on autonomous production in Europe starting at the end of the year.
In liaison with the heads of state and government of the Union, the CEOs of pharmaceutical companies they tried to justify the delays in supplies. “I know there is disappointment – he said Pascal Soriot, of Astrazeneca – but we will do everything to deliver the promised 40 million doses to Europe within the first quarter ”. Moderna's number one, Stéphane Bancel, justified himself by saying that “a year ago we knew nothing about the virus and now we have a vaccine: we are improving; we will invest in production and in new plants also outside Europe”.
Meanwhile, still at EU level, two other possibilities are being studied: delay the administration of the second doses as much as possible of vaccines to broaden coverage and create some sort of European vaccination passport, on which everyone agrees but which will not arrive for three months.
