Sandra GALLINA, Director General for Health and Food Safety, DG SANTE, European Commission, presents the Financing from the EU budget in the context of the EU vaccines strategy to the Committee on Budgets (BUDG) of the European Parliament during a meeting in Brussels.

Brussels

meeting

Committee on Budgets

GARDIAZABAL RUBIAL, Eider (S&D, ES)

FERNANDES, José Manuel (EPP, PT)

VAN OVERTVELDT, Johan (ECR, BE)

Coronavirus outbreak (T)

vaccination strategy (T)

GALLINA, Sandra (IT)

Financing from the EU budget in the context of the EU vaccines strategy - Committee on Budgets: extracts from the Presentation by Sandra GALLINA, Director General for Health and Food Safety of DG SANTE, European Commission

Title: Financing from the EU budget in the context of the EU vaccines strategy - Committee on Budgets: extracts from the Presentation by Sandra GALLINA, Director General for Health and Food Safety of DG SANTE, European Commission (I-201668)

Total view of the Meeting room, remote exchange of views, Brussels (1 shot)

Opening by BUDG Committee chair Johan van Overtveldt, (1 shot)

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra GALLINA, EU&apos;s lead negotiator on Covid-19 vaccines contracts, We did very good contracts in terms of the economic side, but also in terms of liability, and here I come to the issue of negotiations. Negotiations went rapidly. And I must say the real issue that was discussed very long was liability.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra GALLINA, EU&apos;s lead negotiator on Covid-19 vaccines contracts, We were financing to manufacture at risk, meaning that don't look necessarily only at the schedule, look also at the basis of the contract. The contract was saying we are paying public money to get you to produce stocks that will be available once the authorisation is there. So there is no doubt that the production needs to be there.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra GALLINA, EU&apos;s lead negotiator on Covid-19 vaccines contracts, What we buy is the dose delivered in a certain schedule in time, and this is the whole issue, it is to have the companies delivering by the time that they have committed to deliver it. Is it is this possible? These are companies that have started the production. They are ramping up production. We have found that there were a few glitches. But let me say, I have full confidence that they will deliver according to schedule because I must stress they have committed to that.

SOUNDBITE (Portuguese), Jos&#233; Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT), So how much has the Commission already used on vaccines? How much has been used from the R&amp;D programme? How much of the Member states already allocated to for this purpose? Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Eider GARDIAZ&#193;BAL RUBIAL (S&amp;D, ES), Firstly, when will we know the economic content of the agreements of the contracts? What criteria were used for setting prices? Do we have extra mechanisms to ensure that, as Mrs. Gallina said, we are actually going to obtain all of the dossiers that we bought on the schedule that was outlined. And as Mr. Fernandez said, more information on how much money has been used? How's it being distributed? How much has been from the EU budget, how much from the member states?

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra GALLINA, EU&apos;s lead negotiator on Covid-19 vaccines contracts, d

SOUNDBITE (English), Johan VAN OVERTVELDT (ECR, BE), Chair of the Budget committee , 600 million are available under Article 15.3, we have 900 million available in flexibility, which amounts to 1.5 billion euro that could be available this year to invest in vaccines.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra GALLINA, EU&apos;s lead negotiator on Covid-19 vaccines contracts, When you are giving a dose of a certain vaccine and then trying to give the booster of another vaccine, that is very difficult to have companies doing that type of pharmacovigilance because it would be two types of vaccines, I could go on and on because there are many issues that we will need (money) to use it for. But perhaps the biggest argument I want to use is variants. We will need this money for variant because it will be very difficult to have, I will say, just the companies stopping the variance. So that type of research, I must say, it's going to be precious. So I think really most sincerely, the Budget Committee, the parliament, as I will say, the budgetary authority, if you help us for the variants, because they are the real threat.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra GALLINA, EU&apos;s lead negotiator on Covid-19 vaccines contracts, We ended up with the, I would say, payment for two point three, seventy two, if you wish, on one element of pride that I have is that the C one credit for last year were in a sense, all transformed into possibilities for the vaccines, from two point seven billion that we have in commitments. We went to two point six. What happened is that we realised that this money would not have been sufficient. So Member states decided to top up. This was the word to top up with another 750 million.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra GALLINA, EU&apos;s lead negotiator on Covid-19 vaccines contracts, By the end of the year, we will have two point three billion vaccins and the problem will not be having the vaccine. The problem will be vaccination. And what saves lives is vaccination is not vaccines. So we need to quickly look at how we can speed up vaccination once the vaccines are there.