During the plenary session of the European Parliament in Brussels (8-11 February 2021), MEPs debate the state of play of the EU's COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy. Extracts.

The state of play of the EU's COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy: extracts from the debate

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Title: The state of play of the EU&apos;s COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy: extracts from the debate (I-202021)

SOUNDBITE (English), Ana Paula ZACARIAS, Portuguese Secretary of State for European Affairs, Solidarity cannot stop at European's borders for access to vaccines for low and middle income countries is consistent with our values, and it is also in our own interest. We will not be safe until everybody is safe.

SOUNDBITE (German), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, We were late to authorise. We were too optimistic when it came to massive production and perhaps we were too confident that what we ordered would actually be delivered on time. We need to ask ourselves why that is the case and what lessons we can draw from this experience.

SOUNDBITE (French), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, First of all, we need to make improvements in sharing of data when it comes to the clinical results. And that's why, as of now, we have a new European network of these clinical tests.

SOUNDBITE (French), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, The production involves as many as 100 enterprises, which is why we created a task force to increase industrial production of the vaccine under the authority of Thierry Breton, our Commissioner in charge of the internal market. The objective is to track down where problems are and to find ways to solve them.

SOUNDBITE (German), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, If we had just 250 grams more of these molecules, companies say they could produce one million more doses of vaccine, and this is why we need more coordination on the supply of key ingredients.

SOUNDBITE (German), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, We're going to work as hard as we possibly can to meet our objective so that at the end of the summer, 70% of the population will have been vaccinated.

SOUNDBITE (English), Manfred WEBER (EPP, DE), We the cooperationwith the Western world, we need a G7 summit to work with the United States and the UK to overcome the impasse and egoism, to overcome obstacles we still face in the production chain.

SOUNDBITE (German), Manfred WEBER (EPP, DE), An export ban of European produced vaccine must remain on the table, in our view.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Iratxe GARC&#205;A P&#201;REZ (S&amp;D, ES), (talking about AstraZeneca) Our population wants to know what happend. This Parliament needs to able to find an instruments, a way to put together a control mechanisms in overviewing the European Commission. The parliament has to do that in order to get information. We have to have a committee in place where there will be MEPs present and the Commission should be present and come forward and tell us about what needs to be done on this front.

SOUNDBITE (French), Dacian CIOLO&#350; (RE, RO), Each step needs to be justified, explained and to constitute a real solution to the problems at hand.

SOUNDBITE (French), Manon AUBRY (The Left, FR), I ask for an immediate creation of a committee of enquiry looking into the responsibility within the commission in this disaster. We have the right to know.

SOUNDBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (RE, FR), We do want more transparency on contracts, as has been said, but also on data. Monthly data to be published by vaccination rolled out so that we can see where we stand with regard to the objectives that we set ourselves more than 70 percent by the summer. If we don't have this information, how do you expect European citizens to know where we stand, where we are on the route to vaccination?

The state of play of the EU's COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy: extracts from the debate

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