The European Union on Wednesday proposed a strategy that would make the European Commission centrally purchase Covid-19 vaccines on behalf of all EU countries.
In addition, to ensure rapid development and delivery of vaccines, the plan will also see the commission pay upfront for some costs faced by vaccine producers, in return for the right to buy a fixed number of doses.
“In essence, joint action at the EU level will enable all member states to increase the likelihood of finding effective vaccines and to secure the volumes needed for our citizens at a good price,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said when announcing plans.
The commission launching the strategy said the centralization of “procurement of vaccines at the EU level has an excess of speed and efficiency compared to 27 separate processes.” They added, “No Member State has the capacity to secure investments in developing and producing sufficient quantities of vaccines.”
The Commission believes that its broad approach to the EU will create a number of advantages for EU countries and producers.
For vaccine manufacturers, the commission said their process would cut bureaucracy and offer “a significantly simplified negotiation process with a single point of contact.”
How the process works: To enable rapid distribution of vaccines throughout the European Union, the commission will conduct centralized negotiations with each producer and invest in all stages of development from clinical trials to capacity building along the production chain to enable large-scale vaccine production.
In return for an upfront investment, the commission will have “the right to buy a certain number of vaccine doses within a certain time period and at a certain price,” according to their plan.
To finance this plan, the commission proposes using a new 2.7 billion euro fund called the Emergency Support Instrument created to help EU member states recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
For EU countries, the commission believes member countries, “will be able to benefit from purchasing vaccines through a single procurement action,” and will also benefit from “the scientific expertise and regulations of the Commission.”
The commission also called on countries to “participate in the process from the start” and “contribute their expertise to potential vaccine candidates”.
Last week France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands formed the Inclusive Vaccine Alliance to unite the national resources of these countries to secure 400 million doses of vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
