I think trying to quote Bild to lend yourself authority kind of says it all.
I'm truly puzzled by your reaction.
I'm using a quote from a respected German newspaper to illustrate that within EU countries, there is a growing feeling that the Commission has let its citizens down by the tardy manner in which they have gone about the procurement of vaccines. The author chooses to highlight non-EU countries including the UK as examples of governments which have been ahead of the game in comparison to the EU.
I used Bild because I happened to read the about the article today on the Guido Fawkes website, which is part of my daily reading.
However, there are other examples of unease in Europe such as this article from the Project Syndicate website, written on Jan 18, 2021 by
HANS-WERNER SINN in Munich
"With under-supplied vaccination facilities and overcrowded COVID-19 wards, the European Union is reaping what it sowed last summer when it decided to put the European Commission in charge of preordering vaccines. There was neither a legal basis nor any economic justification for central planning.
A storm is raging over the European Union’s failure to have ordered more of the approved COVID-19 vaccines ahead of time. Stéphane Bancel, the CEO of the US pharmaceutical company Moderna, which gained approval for its vaccine shortly after Pfizer/BioNTech, claims that the EU has relied too much on “vaccines from its own laboratories.”
Did the European Commission prioritize supporting its own pharmaceutical industry over protecting human lives? In fact, matters are not as simple as that. Contrary to what Bancel wants us to believe, the EU has actually ordered too little of its own vaccine. After all, the vaccine that is being administered most widely across the West was developed by a German company, BioNTech, and thus comes from the EU (though it was tested and partly produced in partnership with Pfizer in the United States and with Fosun Pharma in China).
Far from having ordered too little of the “American” vaccine, the EU sat back while the US and other countries stocked up on doses of a vaccine that was created and produced in a German lab. The EU is guilty not of protectionism, but of institutional inflexibility. The slow vaccine rollout in many European countries is the result of the EU’s failure to coordinate the interests of the various member states. Whereas some countries balked at the price of BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine, others were skeptical about its new gene-based technological underpinnings, and still others simply did not recognize the urgency of the situation, having assumed that the worst of the pandemic had already passed.
To be sure, an inter-European rivalry between national vaccine producers may have contributed to the EU’s unwillingness to preorder more of the German vaccine last summer, as America and other countries did. As a small start-up from Mainz, BioNTech had little chance of being heard above the din of lobbying at the European Commission by established European pharmaceutical giants.
Whatever the reason, the severe delay in the supply of vaccines in Europe is now a fact. While the US, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada jostled last July and August to secure huge batches of the BioNTech vaccine, the EU initially placed its orders only with Sanofi and AstraZeneca, both of which subsequently admitted difficulties in clinical trials. Not until November – when journalists started asking pointed questions – did the EU strike its first deal for a batch of the BioNTech vaccine. This was followed in December and early January by further purchases, including from Moderna.
Due to the delay in ordering, the deliveries are coming late. After all, producers are operating on a first-come, first-served basis and need time to build up new production sites. As a result, European news media are filled with forlorn images of empty vaccination centers that have run out of supply, alongside footage of overstretched intensive care units. A sense of imminent horror has seized a frightened European public. At this rate, the EU will have no chance of catching up with the US, the UK, Israel, and other leading vaccinators until this summer.
The EU contends that it diversified its orders early on because it couldn’t know which vaccine candidates would succeed. But that is a cheap excuse, considering that it still didn’t order nearly enough from any producer to be able to vaccinate its people in the event that only one vaccine candidate reached the approval stage – a distinct possibility at the time.
If the EU had taken the risk of purchasing enough doses to cover two-thirds of its population from each of the six producers it dealt with, it would have needed to spend just €29 billion ($35 billion). For comparison, that is how much income the EU economy has been losing over the course of just ten days of the COVID-19 crisis. And given that not one but two vaccines have now turned out to be highly effective, the EU would have ended up with a surplus of high-quality doses, which it could have donated to some 300 million people across the developing world.
No single decision-maker bears the blame for Europe’s vaccination debacle. But this episode should make clear that EU member states were wrong to entrust the European Commission with the purchase of vaccines last summer. Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union subjects the EU to the Subsidiarity Principle, which leaves political actions up to member states, except in cases where supranational action can be proven to be more efficient. When it came to securing an ample supply of vaccines, this principle was willfully ignored. There is neither the legal necessity nor a convincing economic justification for central planning in the procurement of vaccines. Had member-state governments been able to buy vaccines independently and in direct competition with other countries worldwide, they might have had to pay a slightly higher price, but they would have placed their orders much earlier to avoid missing the boat. And if orders had been placed earlier, vaccine producers would have been able to invest more in expanding their production capacities."
Furthermore, the EU Ombudsman has now commenced an inquiry into the opaque way in which the Commission has contracted with vaccine suppliers, as detailed below in a press release from the Corporate Europe Observatory.
The European Ombudsman has today started investigating the European Commission's secrecy around its Covid-19 vaccine contracts with pharmaceutical companies and the negotiations that shaped these contracts [1]. This inquiry was sparked by complaints filed by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) earlier this month against the Commission's handling of two September 2020 Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. The Ombudsman has already contacted the Commission and asked for a response before 11 February.
The Ombudsman's inquiry covers two CEO complaints [2]:
1. A complaint against the Commission denying access to its Covid-19 vaccine contract with AstraZeneca, the first contract which the Commission signed last year. The Commission rejected our FOI request for disclosure of the contract, with reference to protecting the commercial interests of AstraZeneca and claiming there was no overriding public interest in transparency. Corporate Europe Observatory appealed this decision, but the Commission has failed to respond within the deadlines defined in the EU FOI legislation.
2. The Commission's refusal to disclose documents related to the vaccine negotiations, including notes of meetings and correspondence as well as the names of the members of the Joint Negotiation Team, which consists of seven experts designated by member states.
After months of growing pressure from MEPs [3] and civil society [4], the Commission has recently taken some first steps to improve transparency, but these have been shown to be haphazard and insufficient.
Earlier this month, the Commission invited MEPs to read a redacted version of the CureVac contract under strict conditions in a reading room. Surprisingly the Commission posted the redacted CureVac contract on its website earlier this week [5]. The five other contracts remain confidential, with neither MEPs nor the general public having any access to the texts. The CureVac contract shows that confidentiality was written into the contracts, giving the pharma companies a veto right (see article 11.6.1 onward). The contract also confirms fears that the lucrative advance purchase agreement (APAs) deals being negotiated in the dark would use public money to remove financial risk and liability from pharma companies developing Covid-19 vaccines.
All of this is without corresponding public interest conditions related to prices and availability, and despite the €2.8 billion public money already spent by the Commission on the development and advance purchase agreements for these vaccines.
The contract shows that the EU has gone very far in 'de-risking' Curevac's investments, but still failed to secure any rights in Curevac inventions or know-how funded under the contract [6]. Moreover, the contract indicates that EU governments, in specific scenarios, could end up paying indemnity for possible side-effects of the vaccine, but key parts of the text regarding this indemnity have been redacted.
Regarding the alarming message by World Health Organisation Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday on the "catastrophic moral failure" over vaccine distribution [7], it is shocking to learn that the doses bought by the EU cannot be passed on to low- and middle income countries without permission from CureVac.
The opaqueness of the vaccines negotiations risk expanding the corporate capture by Big Pharma of EU medicines policies. In September 2020 research by Corporate Europe Observatory [8] revealed how pharma industry lobbying was putting profit before an effective pandemic response. The research showed how Big Pharma, despite lofty PR statements about their commitment to tackling the coronavirus pandemic, is lobbying intensively to protect its problematic, profit-maximising business-model, partly based on public money with no strings attached and excessive monopoly patent rules.
Olivier Hoedeman, researcher at Corporate Europe Observatory, said: "Four months ago we submitted FOI requests to throw light on the EU's Covid-19 vaccine deal negotiations with Big Pharma, but instead of transparency, the European Commission chose delay tactics and secrecy. Transparency is crucial for informed public debate, democratic accountability, and public trust. The Ombudsman's investigation is great news and will hopefully result in a much-needed breakthrough."
Viviana Galli, Coordinator at European Alliance for Responsible R&D and Affordable Medicines, said: "The lack of transparency undermines trust in the institutions and science, which is fundamental in current times. Secrecy and the need to ask private companies for disclosure authorisation are unjustified where considerable amounts of public funds have been invested in research and development and used to conclude these deals. Exchanges with companies and the contracts should be disclosed in their entirety for public scrutiny and to ensure that the public interest has been protected."
Yannis Natsis, Policy Manager for Universal Access & Affordable Medicines, European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) said: "European governments and the Commission must stop beating around the bush and publish all contracts and exchanges with companies as soon as possible. The success story of the EU Covid-19 vaccines procurement strategy is seriously undermined by the secrecy imposed by pharma companies and condoned by the EU and its members. The Ombudsman's inquiry proves that the demand for public accountability is only getting louder and stronger."
As for lending myself any authority, that comment probably says more about you than about me.
I try to use hard facts or evidence to substantiate my views or rebut arguments and statements which I believe are inaccurate, which isn't always the case here or on any similar forum, in fairness.
But enough of that, you look after yourself in the months ahead. Stay safe and keep smiling.
