Coronavirus vaccine: Twenty-seven agree on a common strategy

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The member countries of the European Union have decided to set up a common strategy to obtain privileged and rapid access to pharmaceutical laboratories for future vaccines against Covid-19. The EU will provide the funds for the laboratories to invest.

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This new European initiative aims to give the Union a considerable strike force. The 27 have backed the idea of ​​a joint order for vaccines. This will make it possible to use a large part of the 2.4 billion euros of the emergency aid instrument, released during the crisis to insure these contracts. "  We have been given a clear political mandate to move forward with our strategy,  " said Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides during a press conference following the ministers' meeting.

With these funds, the Europeans hope in particular to be able to get ahead of the United States in the race for the vaccine by investing massively to help research efforts and production capacities. This commitment would then allow them to be on the front line to buy large quantities of future vaccines, explains our correspondent in Brussels, Pierre Benazet . "Close contacts" with laboratories with production capacities in Europe are already underway, according to the Commission.

This initiative is in addition to the alliance already concluded by France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy to avoid intra-European competition. It is also a sign of the establishment of a Health Europe, a prerogative that so far Europeans have refused to share.

The deepening of the European Union is progressing once again in the wake of a crisis, with also the new strategic health reserve endowed with more than 9 billion euros over seven years, which represents an increase of more than 2,000 % of the total of what has so far been allocated for health in the European budget.

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• European Union
• Coronavirus