The NGO Global Health Advocate has conducted an in-depth investigation into how the 2020 and 2021 vaccine contracts between Big Pharma and the EU commission were established. As expected, many things have happened that cannot bear the light of day and have been kept secret from the general public.
In this link the report by NGO GHA :
Below are the key elements of this report :
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This report outlines the circumstances in which the COVID-19 vaccine contract negotiations took place. Key stakeholders involved in the negotiations and decision-making shared their insider perspectives for this report.
Our analysis examines the degree of influence Big Pharma exerted in steering the EU decision-making process and how this fuelled global inequality. We examine how private interests were prioritised, how the European Parliament and citizens were sidelined and how this affected EU decisions on the COVID-19 contracts and the TRIPS exemption. This report is followed by a second report, which is a legal review of the contracts themselves.
PRIVATE INTERESTS ON THE FAST TRACK
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic,several civil society organisations have
raised concerns about the role and power exercised by the pharmaceutical industry in EU decision-making. After the European Council in 2016 recognised that there is a problem with the current "profit over people" model and asked the EC to review its system of incentives, the pharmaceutical industry launched its lobbying machine in Brussels and submitted a proposal to revise the basic pharmaceutical legislation. The legislation is scheduled for early 2023.
An example of the pharmaceutical industry's power over the EU is shown in the 2019 study by Global Health Advocates and Corporate Europe Observatory ""In the Name of Innovation" in health research.
This highlights how the pharmaceutical trade association and lobby group EFPIA (European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries ) controlled the agenda and prioritisation of the €2.5 billion of public EU research funds from the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI).
The investigation found that instead of using these funds to meaningfully invest in unmet medical needs, the IMI focused on areas that were more commercially profitable for the industry. The preponderance of industry influence in the IMI's governance, financial and accountability structures gave EFPIA enormous power in decision-making.
HOW PUBLIC FUNDS WERE SPENT
The influence of pharmaceutical companies only increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lobbying data show that pharmaceutical lobby groups and companies had extensive access to EU policymakers.
Almost 100 meetings with top EC officials took place between January 2020 and September 2022. This figure does not take into account the informal communications such as spontaneous phone calls, which are not recorded in the transparency registers.
In 2020 and 2021 alone, Big Pharma spent more than €30 million on EU lobbying expenses. Once the COVID-19 vaccines were developed, there was a rush for countries to access them. The member states of the EU, who were very keen to try to stop the rise in infections and hospital admissions. A handful of pharmaceutical companies therefore had the upper hand in the negotiations, in what was then considered to be an emergency situation. To be more efficient and quicker,the EU member states agreed on a joint approach whereby the EC
would negotiate and conclude agreements with pharmaceutical companies on their behalf.
NO BACK SEAT FOR CITIZENS AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
"Transparency in a democratic system makes it easier for people to participate in the decision-making process. Institutions can only enjoy greater legitimacy and effectiveness as long as they remain fully accountable to citizens".
"Anyone can read these powerful words on the European Parliament (EP) website. But looking at the EU's COVID-19 vaccine contracts, this is not exactly how things turned out. In reality, public knowledge of the specific terms of the contracts was intentionally very limited.
A VEHICLE WITH TINTED WINDOWS
Following the opacity of the COVID-19 vaccine contract negotiations, the EP began asking questions about the process and how public money was spent but also about the content of the contracts themselves.
In 2021, the New-York Times reported that preliminary negotiations between the President, Ursula von der Leyen, and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, had been conducted by text message. bypassing all official communication channels
removing the EC president from public scrutiny.
In January 2022, the European Ombudsman - Emily O'Reilly - criticised how the EC handled a request for public access to text messages between its president and Pfizer, concluding that there was "maladministration" on the part of the EC. The EC responded to this request by saying that no such messages were recorded.
The Ombudsman responded that ""Not all text messages must be recorded, but text messages clearly fall under the EU transparency law which broadly states that it is the content and not the medium that counts when it comes to the inclusion of EU documents. Work-related text messages should be treated as EU documents - and thus registered so that the public can request access to them."
In September 2020, several NGOs and MEPs started submitting information requests for access to EC documents in line with their rights under EU Regulation 1049/2001. They requested the names of negotiators, minutes of meetings, access to correspondence between industry and negotiators or the EC, records of meetings, and most importantly, access to the contracts concluded.
Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) made two separate requests, one for the contracts and one for related documents.
Olivier Hoedeman, research and campaign coordinator at CEO shared with
us the following about their requests : " for the first one, the contracts, we got
very early a rejection and on the other we got no response at all "
The Ombudsman then opened an investigation into the EC's refusal to allow public access to the requested documents and its failure to deal with the request. This in turn led to the publication of heavily redacted contracts and a promise to consider making documents related to the negotiations available. Satisfied with the EC's response, the Ombudsman closed the investigation.
Five Green MPs, were dissatisfied with the communicated contracts most of which had been blacked out and went so far as to file a complaint against the EC at the European Court of Justice. MEP Michèle Rivasi (Greens, France), who is also part of the team that filed the lawsuit against the EC believes that the EC did not want to disclose the contracts because they were poorly negotiated and against the interests of citizens.
The Green MPs were not the only ones dissatisfied with the EC's handling of the case. In October 2021, the European Parliament adopted in plenary session a resolution on EU transparency in the development, procurement and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
After unfulfilled promises by the EC to release most documents related to the COVID-19 vaccine negotiations,the Ombudsman reopened the investigation in January 2022. This resulted in the publication of additional sets of redacted contracts until June 2021 after which the second investigation was closed. However, the ombudsman requested that the EC releases all documents by 18 January 2023 at the latest, in line with its earlier promise.
On 09.01.2023, however, the Corporte Europe Observatory ( CEO ) had still not received an update.
In the margin : on 02.02.2022, it still hasn't..
You can read all about the role of Belgium and in particular its Prime Minister Alexander De Croo in Politico's article. https://www.politico.eu/article/covid-vaccine-poor-countries-waiver-killed/
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