Due to a large surplus of doses of anti-Covid vaccine, the European Commission is conducting discussions, kept secret, with the Pfizer and BioNTech laboratories. Reuters revealed on January 27, 2023 that the European executive was negotiating a reduction in the initial volume provided for in the order concluded in May 2021 with these pharmaceutical companies in return for an increase in the unit price of the dose. MEPs denounce the opacity around these new negotiations as well as their shelving, believing that this “opaque vaccination policy” is the syndrome of a “problem of democracy at European Union level”.
In May 2021, Brussels signed a third contract worth 35 billion euros with the Pfizer and BioNTech laboratories for the purchase of 1.8 billion deuce additions to the first two orders for its anti-Covid vaccine, the Comirnaty, intended for all the Member States of the Union. The two companies have pledged to supply 900 million doses of their product, with an option for an additional 900 million doses. Deliveries, which started in December 2021, should continue until December 2023.
Member States reluctant to purchase unnecessary doses
In his article, Reuters explain that “half or a little more” of the first firm order of 900 million doses has still not been delivered. To honor this agreement, EU governments are, this year, contractually obliged to pay between 7.8 billion and 9.75 billion euros for a price per dose fixed at 19.50 euros. A problem. Due to the decline in demand for this vaccine in Member States since last year, Member States, which are facing budgetary constraints, are making known their reluctance to make unnecessary purchases of new doses and are therefore pressure on the European Commission, which is negotiating on the sly the possibility of reducing “nearly 500 million the number of doses” which it has undertaken to purchase in exchange for a higher unit price.
The EU executive is also negotiating an extension of the delivery deadline until the second half of 2024, sources say. Reuters who wished to remain anonymous due to the character “secret” discussions.
A member of the Commission told the news agency that “vaccine manufacturers should work with Member States and the Commission to ensure that agreements keep pace with developments”. Although the latter refused to give details of the negotiations around the new pricing, he assured that the Commission “will continue to regulate the supply of vaccine doses over the coming years and extend it over a longer period”.
A Pfizer spokesperson said the lab is “engaged” to answer “to concerns” of EU member states. Regarding its pricing policy, the interlocutor of Reuters adds that Pfizer “has always had a progressive pricing approach”. To say the least: in the United States, by next fall, the American laboratory hopes to sell its vaccine to the government at a unit price per dose in a range now between… $110 and $130.
“Opaque” negotiations, MEPs “sidelined”
In video published on Twitter on February 2, MEP Michèle Rivasi castigated the opacity that surrounds these negotiations without “accountable” to MEPs, but also the Commission’s initial decision to proceed with a new purchase of vaccine doses in May 2021: “The first part of 900 million doses is already too much,” she first pointed out, before recalling that“at the moment, we are no longer in a health emergency”. Also, “Member states no longer want to buy doses. They already have some in stock (…), but Pfizer tells them ‘you are obliged to buy these doses until 2023. (…) Pfizer says: ‘ Ok. You will buy less per member state, but I will increase the price'”, reports the member of the Greens, who is indignant: “Listen, this is no longer working. We see that the European treaties have not been respected by the European Commission, since we, MEPs, have the role of controlling the executive. As we do not have access to information, and that we were obliged to seize the European Court of Justice to have access to the transparency of these contracts, at the moment, we have no information.
As a reminder, the Commission signed, between August 2020 and November 2021, a total of eleven contracts with eight vaccine manufacturers for a total cost of around 71 billion euros.
Continuing her speech, the politician expressed her surprise at having learned that the contracts signed between the laboratories and the Commission included clauses according to which the Member States “are forced to buy doses from Pfizer” until 2023. And to wonder about the content of this agreement: “Why so many doses? Why can’t we renegotiate? And when we renegotiate, we are told that Pfizer will once again increase the price of vaccines, since between the first contract and the third, you see that it went from 15 euros to 19 euros. And now: Pfizer says ‘You will order less, but it can go up to 100 or 130 euros per dose'”, the MEP is surprised, obviously basing herself on the information of Reuters that Pfizer hopes to soon sell its vaccine to the US government at a price per dose of $110 to $130.
“There is a problem of democracy at European Union level. MEPs have been sidelined. When we ask for transparency, we are answered with opacity”denounces Michèle Rivasi, who recalls that this is the reason that motivated the seizure of the European public prosecutor to ask “a full and complete investigation into what happened”.
???? The opacity of the vaccine policy continues.
We have just learned that there are, at this very moment, secret negotiations between the European Commission and Pfizer.
While for months, we have had no response on the 3rd contract signed with the laboratory. pic.twitter.com/vhV4iNX5lR— Michele Rivasi ???? (@MicheleRivasi) February 2, 2023
Ursula von der Leyen summoned before the “Covi” commission
The European parliamentarians at the head of “Covi”, the special committee on the Covid-19 epidemic made up of four vice-presidents and 33 members, have decided to ask the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to come to appear publicly before them, had revealed Politico January 11. The deputies want to question her about her role in the negotiation of the 35 billion euro contract signed in May 2021 with Pfizer. “The European Union has spent a lot of public resources in the production and purchase of vaccines during the pandemic”, explains the president of the “Covi”, the Belgian deputy Kathleen Van Brempt, who asserts in return the right of the Parliament to “obtain full transparency on the terms of these expenditures and the preliminary negotiations leading to them.”
In reaction to the second rabbit posed at the beginning of December by Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, at Covi, who wishes to discuss with him, among other things, “contract transparency”the deputies had also announced their plan to revoke the access privileges of the pharmaceutical laboratory to the European Parliament, as was the case for the company Monsanto in 2017. A decision which must still be validated by internal processes at the ‘institution.