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Von der Leyen makes unreliable promises - The Commission needs a plan B

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The production and delivery of Covid19 vaccines are continuously faltering. Sandra Gallina, chief negotiator for vaccine purchases in the EU, today (1 February) briefed the budgetary committee in the European Parliament on this matter.

She was not able to substantiate Ursula von der Leyen's promise to have 70% of the EU’s population vaccinated by the end of the summer. Plan A is seemingly to trust vaccine producers and hope for more authorisations and accelerated production. But there is still no plan B.

Therefore, the European Union needs to step up its game and offset the patent protection, in order to allow other producers than the patent holders to support the production. Calling for Article 122 as suggested by Council President Charles Michel, would make this possible.

The budgetary spokesperson of the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament said: "Ursula von der Leyen‘s promise to provide vaccines for 70% of Europeans by the end of the summer is very ambitious. Unfortunately, the Commission was not able to give an answer to the question, how this objective could be reached, considering the ongoing problems with regard to vaccine production and delivery.

"On the contrary, Gallina made clear that there is no plan B. The Commission is still counting on promises made my vaccine producers. But it is not enough to just hope for more vaccines in the second quarter of this year.

"We as Greens support the suggestion made by Council President Michel to trigger Article 122 in order to offset patent protection, which could mobilise resources and capacities for vaccine production.

"We also continuously call for full transparency from the EU Commission and pharmaceutical companies. Only with transparency and democratic control by the European Parliament we will be able to gain trust again."

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