EU Summit: Vaccination takes top priority

The EU vaccination campaign against coronavirus needs to be accelerated. Production capacities need to be expanded in cooperation with major vaccine manufacturers. The EU also wants to financially support the adaptation of vaccines to virus mutations and to license new vaccine variants sooner than usual. “This is a high priority,” said EU Council President Charles Michel.

“We need to improve access to vaccine production,” said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo. “Faster access to more vaccines is crucial, to protect people and get them back to normal.” In seven EU countries the number of infections is rising despite various restrictive measures, said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. In the other 20 member states infection rates are declining or have remained constant. Chancellor Angela Merkel against the background of mutations of the virus with a high risk of infection has expressed a “third wave” in which we are currently.

Capacity building

The heads of governments and states of EU countries during the video conference on Thursday (25.02) approved the proposals of the EU Commission for a better supply of vaccines. In Marburg, the EU is supporting the construction of a new vaccine factory, which is expected to produce around one billion vaccines a year. The Commission will in future coordinate the fight against the pandemic through a new “health emergency” authority named Hera. Member states again promised to intensify the search for variants of the virus, so that dangerous mutations can be detected more quickly. In parallel with the summit of 27 heads of state and government in the EU Parliament in Brussels was discussed with the heads of the six largest suppliers of vaccine to the EU. They promised to do their best to supply the promised doses of vaccines as soon as possible. It also aims to co-operate in developing vaccines tailored to the virus mutations, said Pascal Soirot, chief executive of AstraZeneca, which has been heavily criticized by the EU for its business policies.

Vaccine certificate “relatively fast”

In principle, EU heads of state and government agreed to develop a unified vaccination passport or certificate, through which vaccinated persons could be allowed to engage in leisure activities as well as to participate in activities or travel. “The political decision on what exactly can be done with the vaccination certificate has not yet been made,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told a news conference in Berlin. Also asked by DW if such an electronic certificate could be available by summer, she said “I am not a programmer”, adding “in a relatively short time”. Only the development of the national vaccination certificate, which will then be integrated into a European certificate, may take three months. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, along with his counterparts from Greece, Cyprus and Spain committed themselves to this. Kurz said before the summit that the “green passport” for those vaccinated or cured of the coronavirus was appropriate to enable “a little freedom” and an “organized gradual return to normalcy”.

“But this does not mean that in the end only the vaccinated will be allowed to travel,” said Chancellor Merkel. Cross-border traffic in the EU can be facilitated. But eventually COVID tests for travelers can be applied. It is essentially up to the member states themselves to decide how they want to use the vaccination certificate in the future. “The vaccination certificate is politically neutral,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The leader of the Christian Democrat group in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber (CSU), urged heads of state and government to rush further. It would be “a bureaucratic nightmare” for vaccinated people now to want to be issued a vaccination certificate later, Weber told DW.

No border controls between France and Germany

French President Emmanuel Macron in a video conference reiterated his proposal that doses of EU-purchased vaccines be donated to the poorest countries in Africa. Macron spoke for a five percent quota. Merkel welcomed the proposal, but said it was not yet possible to set a deadline for their submission. The first contingents purchased by the UN COVAX initiative were supplied today in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. These doses should be used for vaccination next week in these countries. “This is a global pandemic, everyone needs to be vaccinated. “No one is safe unless everyone is safe,” said EU Council President Charles Michel.

Chancellor Merkel made it clear that there would be no border closure with France. “Border closures are not on the agenda,” she said. Although France has instructed travel bans and intensified tests at the Saarland border, the circulation of working and resident persons between the two countries as well as the circulation of goods will continue. Border controls are in place with regions with “mutation zones” such as Tyrol and the Czech Republic. “In certain cases we are obliged to apply certain restrictions,” said Angela Merkel. People who work and live between the two countries must continue to work, but they must be tested. The EU Commission has criticized border controls in Germany and five other EU internal market countries as disturbing.

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