European Union
Vaccine sharing: Dhaka wants EU to be more generous
The European Union (EU) should be more generous in sharing Covid-19 vaccines with others who need them badly, Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said Thursday.
Although the EU talks much about human rights, it cares little about it when it comes to vaccine sharing, he said.
"We expect the EU to be more generous," the minister told reporters while referring to the fact that European countries are letting thousands of Covid-19 vaccine doses expire.
Read: Bangladesh to receive 60 lakh more Pfizer vaccine doses in Aug: Minister
However, Dr Momen said Bangladesh will soon receive more vaccine doses from the US.
The country will receive 10 lakh doses of Pfizer vaccine on August 30.
Also, the foreign minister said he will leave Dhaka on August 28 to attend a series of programmes in Geneva, Switzerland, the Netherlands and hold important meetings in London during his stopover there.
Read: US regulators give full approval to Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine
On the Afghanistan issue, Dr Momen said Bangladesh is keeping close tabs on the situation and the Bangladesh Embassy in Uzbekistan is in touch with Bangladeshis who are willing to return.
Talking about his recent South Sudan and South Africa visit, the minister said it was very useful and successful.
Once lagging, Europe catches up to the US in vaccinations
Despite a sluggish start, the European Union’s COVID-19 vaccination drive has caught up to that of the United States, where the slowdown of the country’s once-vaunted campaign has contributed to the virus’s deadly comeback.
In mid-February, less than 4% of people living in the 27-nation EU were at least partially vaccinated against the coronavirus, compared with nearly 12% in the U.S, according to Our World in Data, an online science publication connected to the University of Oxford.
Read:Pizza for shots: UK targets young with vaccine incentives
Now the EU has surpassed the U.S. by that same measure, with some 60% of the bloc’s residents receiving at least one dose, versus less than 58% of Americans.
In Italy, where roughly 63% of people 12 and older are fully protected, Premier Mario Draghi took a victory lap this past week.
“I said that I don’t want to celebrate successes, but it must be said that Italy has inoculated more doses per 100 inhabitants than France, Germany, the United States,” he said as the country’s vaccine verification program went into effect Friday.
People in Italy must now show proof they have had at least one vaccine dose, recovered from COVID-19 or recently tested negative for the virus if they want to dine indoors, use gyms or go to concerts, theaters, museums and tourist sites such as the Colosseum.
European authorities attribute success in Italy and elsewhere to nationalized health care and a history of public confidence in the safety of immunizations.
The EU’s slow process for approving the vaccinations set the bloc back at the beginning, but that is now paying dividends because it is instilling more confidence in the rapidly developed formulas, said Dr. Peter Liese, a European Parliament member from Germany.
While the U.S. and Britain issued emergency authorizations of vaccines to get shots into arms quickly, the EU went through the longer process of granting full approvals, putting it weeks behind.
“I am convinced that we have a good argument to explain to people still hesitating that the vaccine was properly tested in Europe,” Liese said recently. “Now it becomes clear that not only the pace of vaccination in the first months but also the long-term strategy is important.”
The turnaround in Spain has been pronounced. In mid-April, when nearly a quarter of all Americans were fully vaccinated, only 7% of Spaniards were similarly protected, according to Our World in Data. Now, nearly 60% of Spain’s roughly 47 million people are fully vaccinated, while about half the U.S. is.
Portugal, with around 10 million people, had fully vaccinated around a third of its population by the end of June. Now officials say it is on track to reach 70% by the end of the summer.
Read:UK recognises Bangladesh's Dr Jara as 'Vaccine Luminary'
Like the American vaccination drive, the European Union effort started around Christmas and struggled to meet initial demand. But it quickly turned into a major political embarrassment for European officials, as the U.S. and Britain jumped ahead.
The major factor holding back the EU initially was its decision to purchase vaccines as a bloc instead of as individual countries. The move ensured smaller member nations weren’t left out, but it ended up taking more time to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies, said Giovanna De Maio, a visiting fellow in international relations at George Washington University.
The U.S. was also more efficient in distributing the vaccine, quickly setting up large-scale vaccination sites and also supplying shots to neighborhood pharmacies, groceries and other places, while the EU initially focused on hospitals and other medical facilities, she said.
EU nations were also overly confident manufacturers would deliver. As it turned out, Astra-Zeneca failed to produce its shots on time and delivered a paltry number of doses. Concerns over its safety and effectiveness also contributed to vaccine skepticism. But with the major rollout of the Pfizer shot, things turned around.
Meanwhile, the U.S. vaccination effort peaked and then dropped off dramatically in the face of significant hesitancy and outright hostility, fueled by misinformation and partisan politics.
As of the end of July, the U.S. was dispensing under 600,000 shots a day on average, down from a peak of over 3.4 million a day in April. The highly contagious delta variant has sent new daily cases soaring over the past month to levels not seen since February. The vast majority of those hospitalized were not vaccinated.
Still, not all is well within the EU. Discrepancies between member states are huge. For example, in the Netherlands, 85% of adults have received at least one dose. In Bulgaria, it is less than 20%.
There are also troubling signs that Europe’s campaign is losing steam.
In Germany, where 54% of the population is fully vaccinated, the number of shots being dispensed per day has declined from more than 1 million in May to about 500,000.
Officials there have begun pushing for more vaccinations at megastores and in city centers and are offering incentives. A vaccination drive in Thuringia state included free bratwurst, while sites in Berlin planned to have DJs play music this weekend in hopes of encouraging young people to get inoculated.
Read:UK urges commitment to vaccinate the world by end of 2022
De Maio said she believes nationwide vaccine mandates like her native Italy’s Green Pass program could help EU nations avoid America’s fate.
“European politicians see it coming and they’re taking these measures,” she said of the potential for vaccination efforts to stall in Europe. “They’re desperate trying to avoid that because Europe can’t afford another lockdown, given the big economic toll COVID has already taken.”
In heat emergency, southern Europe scrambles for resources
A heat wave baking southeast Europe has fueled deadly wildfires in Turkey and threatened the national power grid in Greece as governments scrambled Monday to secure the resources needed to cope with the emergency.
Temperatures reached 45 C (113 F) in inland areas of Greece and nearby countries and are expected to remain high for most of the week.
Read:At least 2 killed in German chemical blast; 31 injured
Battling deadly wildfires along its coastline for a sixth day, Turkey broadened an appeal for international assistance and was promised water-dropping planes from the European Union. The fires have been blamed for the deaths of eight people in recent days.
The help for residents in Turkey’s fire-ravaged areas couldn’t come soon enough. At the coastal village of Bozalan, resident Esra Sanli looked over at the blaze.
“It’s burning. It’s obviously burning. There’s no plane, there’s no helicopter, there are no (access) roads,” she said, sobbing. “How is this going to be extinguished? How?”
In Greece, an emergency was declared in fire-hit areas on the island of Rhodes, which is near the Turkish coast. Workers with health conditions were allowed to take time off work, while Greek coal-fired power stations slated for retirement were brought back into service to shore up the national grid, under pressure due to the widespread use of air conditioning.
Pregnant and other vulnerable workers in North Macedonia were told to stay home.
Dann Mitchell, a professor of climate science at the University of Bristol, said the heat wave in southeast Europe “is not at all unexpected, and very likely enhanced due to human-induced climate change.”
“The number of extreme heat events around the world is increasing year on year, with the top 10 hottest years on record all occurring since 2005,” Mitchell told The Associated Press.
Read:Europe’s summer tourism outlook dimmed by variants, rules
“This year, we have seen a number of significant events, including a particularly dramatic heat wave in western Canada and the U.S., that was extreme even for current levels of climate change,” Mitchell said. “These black swan events have always happened, but now they sit on the background of a hotter climate, so are even more deadly.”
As hot weather edged southward, Italy and Croatia were experiencing storms as well as wildfires. A small tornado in Istria, on Croatia’s northern Adriatic coast, toppled trees that destroyed several cars, hours before a large wildfire erupted outside the nearby resort of Trogir, threatening homes and the local power supply.
Some 30 people were treated for light smoke inhalation in Italy’s coastal city of Pescara after flames tore through a nearby pine forest. Beach-goers nearby had to be rescued by sea Sunday from that wildfire.
“That zone of pine forest is a nature reserve, and it’s completely destroyed. It brings tears to see it. The environmental damage is incalculable. This is the heart of the city, its green lung and today it is destroyed,” Pescara Mayor Carlo Masci said.
Cyprus, recovering from a major wildfire last month, kept water-dropping planes on patrol to respond to fires as they broke out.
“If you don’t react right away with a massive response to any outbreak, things can turn difficult quickly,” forestry service chief Charalambos Alexandrou told state-run media. “The conditions are war-like.”
On a visit to the power grid operator Monday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis urged members of the public to avoid daytime use of ovens, washing machines and other energy-demanding appliances to reduce the risk of blackouts. He described the weather conditions in Greece as the most severe since a deadly heat wave in 1987.
Read:Residents say flood-hit German towns got little warning
It was the year that Ioanna Vergou, deputy mayor of the northern Greek town of Skydra, was born. The town of 5,500 briefly ranked among the hottest in the country. She said municipal workers had been given earlier shifts and those needing public services were handed water and sent to an air-conditioned waiting area.
“Many people here have compared the heat wave to what happened in 1987,” she said. “But hopefully it will be easier this time round. We are all just waiting for it to pass.”
EU delegation launches Climate Adaptation Campaign
Following the publication of the EU Adaptation Strategy, the European Union Delegation to Bangladesh started the Climate Adaptation Campaign on Sunday on its social media.
The campaign will continue until the end of the current month.
As part of the European Green Deal, the European Commission published a new and ambitious adaptation strategy on 24th February.
READ: Bangladesh top source country for migrants reaching EU via risky Meditarranean route
The strategy will make the European Union not only a climate-neutral, but also a climate-resilient society by 2050, said a press release.
The strategy pursues four interlinked objectives: to make adaptation smarter, more systemic and faster, and to step up international action.
“We need to act immediately. Now is the time to transform our societies and economies both in Europe as well as in Bangladesh. We need to move from ‘business as usual’ approaches to integrated, longer-term strategies for adaptation and disaster risk management. We must ensure that the COVID-19 recovery agenda increases local adaptive capacity,” said the release.
As pointed out by the Global Commission on Adaptation, investing USD 1.8 trillion globally in just five key adaptation areas from 2020 to 2030 could generate up to USD 7.1 trillion in total net benefits. Adaptation is a no-regret investment for any country. The five areas considered are early warning systems, climate-resilient infrastructure, improved dryland agriculture, mangrove protection, and investments in making water resources more resilient, it added.
READ: Europe’s summer tourism outlook dimmed by variants, rules
The EU has been already working and innovating on these areas in Bangladesh since 2016 funding a project called “Local Government Initiative on Climate Change” (LoGIC), contributing with 15 million EUR.
This is a joint initiative led by the Local Government Division of the Ministry of Local Government Rural Development together with EU, Sweden and implemented by UNDP and UNCDF.
LoGIC has been designed to support approximately 200,000 of the most vulnerable households in 72 unions in seven districts in Bangladesh, and following its successful approach has been scaled-up in 2021, and aims doubling the number of beneficiaries in the next year and half.
The benefits are expected to come out of climate change adaptation actions at various levels, scaled up through local government institutions incorporating high-quality accountability and participation of the most vulnerable people, it said.
READ: Challenges remain despite Europe meeting 70 pct vaccine delivery goal
“Bangladesh is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries globally. The EU is aware that areas such as the south-west and the floodplains are particularly vulnerable, both from an economic and climate-change perspective. It is fundamental to raise people attention to climate adaptation because the effects of climate change are already here, so we need to do much more to adapt to the consequences and mitigate to the maximum possible extent. The new EU Adaptation Strategy launched in June 2021 will help us get there and provide a framework for further action in the years to come,”said Maurizio CIAN, Head of Unit – Head of Cooperation.
“We must sharply cut greenhouse gas emissions to prevent unmanageable impacts and at the same time, we must adapt to climate change to increase society's resilience and manage unavoidable impacts. We are convinced that mitigation and adaptation are complementary and reinforce each other. The EU with its member states and through concrete actions such as the Team Europe Initiative on Green Energy Transition and LoGIC is already working on this direction and will continue to devote a high share of our international cooperation funding to climate action.”
Immunized but banned: EU says not all COVID vaccines equal
After Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor and his wife received two doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine in Nigeria, they assumed they would be free to travel this summer to a European destination of their choice. They were wrong.
The couple — and millions of other people who have been vaccinated through a U.N.-backed effort — could find themselves barred from entering many European and other countries because those nations don’t recognize the Indian-made version of the vaccine for travel.
Although AstraZeneca vaccine produced in Europe has been authorized by the continent’s drug regulatory agency, the same shot manufactured in India hasn’t been given the green light.
EU regulators said AstraZeneca hasn’t completed the necessary paperwork on the Indian factory, including details on its production practices and quality control standards.
Read:FDA adds warning about rare reaction to J&J COVID-19 vaccine
But some experts describe the EU move as discriminatory and unscientific, pointing out that the World Health Organization has inspected and approved the factory. Health officials say the situation won’t only complicate travel and frustrate fragile economies but also undermine vaccine confidence by appearing to label some shots substandard.
As vaccination coverage rises across Europe and other rich countries, authorities anxious to salvage the summer tourism season are increasingly relaxing coronavirus border restrictions.
Earlier this month, the European Union introduced its digital COVID-19 certificate, which allows EU residents to move freely in the 27-nation bloc as long as they have been vaccinated with one of the four shots authorized by the European Medicines Agency, have a fresh negative test, or have proof they recently recovered from the virus.
While the U.S. and Britain remain largely closed to outside visitors, the EU certificate is seen as a potential model for travel in the COVID-19 era and a way to boost economies.
The officially EU-endorsed vaccines also include those made by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. They don’t include the AstraZeneca shot made in India or many other vaccines used in developing countries, including those manufactured in China and Russia.
Individual EU countries are free to apply their own rules for travelers from inside and outside the bloc, and their rules vary widely, creating further confusion for tourists. Several EU countries, including Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, allow people to enter if they have had non-EU-endorsed vaccines; several others, including France and Italy, don’t.
For Nsofor, the realization he could be barred was “a rude awakening.” After a tough year of working during the pandemic in Abuja, Nsofor and his wife were looking forward to a European vacation with their two young daughters, perhaps admiring the Eiffel Tower in Paris or touring Salzburg in Austria.
Nsofor noted that the Indian-made vaccine he received had been authorized by WHO for emergency use and had been supplied through COVAX, the U.N.-backed program to provide shots to poor corners of the world. WHO’s approval included a visit to the Serum Institute of India factory to ensure that it had good manufacturing practices and that quality control standards were met.
“We’re grateful to the EU that they funded COVAX, but now they are essentially discriminating against a vaccine that they actively funded and promoted,” Nsofor said. “This will just give room to all kinds of conspiracy theories that the vaccines we’re getting in Africa are not as good as the ones they have for themselves in the West.”
Read: Pfizer to discuss vaccine booster with US officials Monday
Ivo Vlaev, a professor at Britain’s University of Warwick who advises the government on behavioral science during COVID-19, agreed that Western countries’ refusal to recognize vaccines used in poor countries could fuel mistrust.
“People who were already suspicious of vaccines will become even more suspicious,” Vlaev said. “They could also lose trust in public health messages from governments and be less willing to comply with COVID rules.”
Dr. Mesfin Teklu Tessema, director of health for the International Rescue Committee, said countries that have declined to recognize vaccines cleared by WHO are acting against the scientific evidence.
“Vaccines that have met WHO’s threshold should be accepted. Otherwise it looks like there’s an element of racism here,” he said.
WHO urged countries to recognize all of the vaccines it has authorized, including two Chinese-made ones. Countries that decline to do so are “undermining confidence in lifesaving vaccines that have already been shown to be safe and effective, affecting uptake of vaccines and potentially putting billions of people at risk,” the U.N. health agency said in a statement this month.
In June, the Serum Institute of India’s CEO, Adar Poonawalla, tweeted that he was concerned about vaccinated Indians facing problems traveling to the EU and said he was raising the problem at the highest levels with regulators and countries.
Stefan De Keersmaeker, a spokesman for the EU’s executive arm, said last week that regulators were obligated to check the production process at the Indian factory.
“We are not trying to create any doubts about this vaccine,” he said.
AstraZeneca said it only recently submitted the paperwork on the Indian factory to the EU drug regulatory agency. It didn’t say why it didn’t do so earlier, before the agency made its original decision in January.
Read: South Africa ramps up vaccine drive, too late for this surge
Public health experts warned that countries that decline to recognize vaccines backed by WHO are complicating global efforts to safely restart travel.
“You can’t just cut off countries from the rest of the world indefinitely,” said Dr. Raghib Ali of the University of Cambridge. “To exclude some people from certain countries because of the vaccine they’ve received is wholly inconsistent because we know that these approved vaccines are extremely protective.”
Nsofor said he and his wife are still deciding where to take their summer vacation and are leaning toward Singapore or East Africa.
“I didn’t realize there were so many layers to vaccine inequity,” he said.
Tk 330 cr disbursed from EU funds to strengthen social security during pandemic
The European Union (EU) and Germany on Wednesday transferred EUR 33 million or approximately Tk 330 crore to the government of Bangladesh to strengthen key areas of its social security system and build resilience to Covid-19, with a particular focus on the affected workers in export-oriented industries.
This is the second disbursement from the joint EUR 113 million grant made available by the EU and Germany as part of Team Europe’s response to fight Covid-19 and its consequences beyond their own borders too.
Funds are channelled through the budget support programme on National Social Security Strategy reforms in Bangladesh.
EU Ambassador to Bangladesh Rensje Teerink said they encourage the government to ensure appropriate social protection systems and measures that protect those who are in need.
Also read: EU, Germany contribute to strengthen social security in Bangladesh with EUR 80mn
"Beyond the immediate Covid-19 response, this programme represents a concrete first step towards the longer-term objective to establish adequate and sustainable social security for workers addressing different risks."
She said the EU and its Member States are committed to support efforts to establish adequate and sustainable social security for workers, with the shared objectives to protect lives and livelihoods.
German Ambassador Peter Fahrenholtz said they are pleased to join forces with the EU and support the Government of Bangladesh in mitigating the negative effects of the covid-19 pandemic on vulnerable workers in key export sectors like the RMG and leather sectors.
"We hope that the support will reach as many eligible workers as possible and we count on the joint efforts of the Government, the associations and the factories to achieve this.”
Also read: EU contributes to strengthen social security in Bangladesh with EUR 24mn
The programme was designed to run for two years (2020-22).
It provides direct cash transfer allowances (up to 3 months) to unemployed workers who meet the eligibility criteria and whose data is verified/validated as per the guidelines.
The establishment in October 2020 of the Government’s Social Protection Programme for Unemployed and Distressed Workers in the Ready-Made Garment (RMG), Leathergoods and Footwear Industries features as an important response measure.
With this grant, the EU and Germany recognize and support the Government’s commitment to strengthen social security in Bangladesh, along with its commitment to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
EU to strengthen education system in Bangladesh; provides EUR 46.12mn
The European Union (EU) has provided EUR 42 million or Tk 423 crore to the government of Bangladesh to support key national reforms in the education sector.
With this grant, the EU recognises and supports the government’s commitment to the development of human capital, the eradication of poverty and inequalities, along with its commitment to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, said the EU Embassy in Dhaka.
This is the second disbursement under the EU sector budget support ‘Human Capital Development Programme 2021’, which focuses on strengthening the education and skills sector of Bangladesh with specific focus on primary, as well as technical and vocational education and training.
Also read: EU launches TEI GET in Bangladesh to invest in renewable energy
In line with the National Education Policy and National Skills Development Policy, the EU support aims to contribute to government of Bangladesh’s own reform agenda and institutional capacity towards a comprehensive education and skills development approach.
"Education is fundamental for the economic growth of a country and remains at the core of the EU's development cooperation. Reaping the maximum benefit of Bangladesh’s demographic dividend will largely depend on an inclusive and equitable quality Primary Education and Technical and Vocational Education system designed to cater to the future job market and employment generation,” said EU Ambassador Rensje Teerink.
She said the EU is, however, concerned about the continued school closure as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Once the pandemic situation allows it and when effective precautionary measures can be taken, the reopening of schools must proceed as soon as possible, in particular because access to alternative distant schooling solutions remains a challenge for a large number of students, especially the marginalized ones,” she added.
Also read: Germany to provide EUR 339.54 to Bangladesh under two deals
The support programme to education reforms intends to provide a total of EUR 217 million as budget support linked to jointly-agreed performance indicators.
The programme addresses core elements of system strengthening and policy development.
Technical assistance is also available to support the cluster of institutions responsible to coordinate and deliver education reforms.
The disbursement of this second payment comes after a positive decision of the Budget Support Steering Committee of the European Commission's Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development in May 2021.
EU launches TEI GET in Bangladesh to invest in renewable energy
European Union and its other financial institutions including European Investment Bank (EIB) have expressed keen interest to finance the country’s green energy and energy efficiency projects.
They expressed their interest during the launch of the Team Europe Initiative on Green Energy Transition (TEI GET) in Bangladesh at a virtual function on Wednesday (June 23, 2021) in the city.
Welcoming the launch of the TEI GET, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said Bangladesh has set a target to generate 40 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2040.
Read Solar power plant in Manikganj starts commercial operation
“We want technological and financial support from the EU to achieve the goal with its huge experience in the field”, he said.
The function was also addressed by Rensje Teerink, Ambassador of the EU Delegation, head of cooperation of German Embassy Caren Blume, European Investment Bank representative Donal Cannon and German agency FfW’s representative Anirben Kundu, and Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority (Sreda) Chairman Mohammad Alauddin.
It was informed that TEI GET is one of two flagships of the international Team Europe approach, which provides strategic European responses to the challenges faced by Europe`s partner countries.
Also read: Move for setting up national renewable energy lab
The current amount of activities of TEI GET adds up to EUR 930.6million (equivalent to around Tk 9378.7crore) to promote investment in green energy and energy efficiency projects.
In Bangladesh, the Team Europe initiative on Green Energy Transition is co-chaired by Germany and the Delegation of the European Union (EU).
It aims at supporting Bangladesh to build a power system that leads to maximum coverage of the country’s energy demand through renewable energy. It also intends to reduce CO2 emissions, energy consumption and demand through energy efficiency.
Read Bangladesh’s single largest rooftop solar power plant inaugurated in Korean EPZ
Nasrul Hamid said Bangladesh took up 52 solar projects and only 3-4 were implemented due to various obstacles including high cost, and scarcity in lands.
“But Bangladesh is very much committed to achieve the renewable energy target and has already dropped some coal-fired power plants from the implementation list as a move to reduce dependency to fossil fuel”, he said.
He said technology is changing so fast and cost is coming down will help Bangladesh to achieve the new goal.
Also read: Promotion of renewable energy requires common international platform: Nasrul
Rensje Teerink said the Team Europe initiative draws on the wealth of Team Europe’s expertise in Renewable Energy.
“It pulls resources together and provides an opportunity to combine the most appropriate mix of implementing modalities to obtain maximum results. It shows that multilateralism works”, she added.
The EIB representative said trans-border electricity transmission, energy storage and energy efficiency projects could be potential areas of investment.
Read Solar Home System: IDCOL partners seek govt intervention in loan write-off issue
“But the projects must be designed appropriately maintaining international standards to attract investment from the EIB”, he added.
AstraZeneca, EU both claim a win in vaccine delivery tussle
A Belgian court ruled Friday that coronavirus vaccine-maker AstraZeneca had committed a “serious breach” of its contract with the European Union amid a major legal battle over delivery obligations that has tarnished the company’s image.
The court ordered AstraZeneca to deliver a total of 80.2 million doses to the EU from the time the contract was agreed up until Sept. 27. The ruling said the company did not appear to have made a “best reasonable effort” to meet the delivery schedule because it had not used its U.K. production sites.
But the Anglo-Swedish company claimed victory, saying that this was far fewer than the 120 million doses that the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, was seeking in total by the end of June. It also welcomed the court’s acknowledgement that it was under unprecedented pressure.
Also read: AstraZeneca: Govt's desperate efforts yet to yield any good news
AstraZeneca was seen as a key pillar of the EU’s vaccine rollout. Its contract with the Commission foresaw an initial 300 million doses being distributed, with an option for another 100 million, but the speed of deliveries was far slower than the company originally thought.
“We are pleased with the Court’s order,” Executive Vice-President Jeffrey Pott said in a statement. “AstraZeneca has fully complied with its agreement with the European Commission and we will continue to focus on the urgent task of supplying an effective vaccine.”
The Commission, for its part, also claimed a victory in that the judge had ordered the company to respect a delivery schedule of 15 million doses by July 26, 20 million doses by August 23 and 15 million doses by Sept. 27. It ordered a fine of 10 euros ($12) per dose not delivered.
Also read: EU takes on AstraZeneca in court over vaccine deliveries
“This decision confirms the position of the Commission: AstraZeneca did not live up to the commitments it made in the contract. It is good to see that an independent judge confirms this,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
“This shows that our European vaccination campaign not only delivers for our citizens day by day. It also demonstrates that it was founded on a sound legal basis,” she said in a statement.
AstraZeneca’s image has been hurt by the slow pace of its vaccine production, but despite EU dissatisfaction with the speed of deliveries the Commission still recommends the company’s shots as effective protection against the coronavirus.
WTO talks on Trips waiver from June 30
World Trade Organization (WTO) members will on June 30 begin talks on the scope and coverage of the waiver of provisions of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) agreement proposed by India and South Africa for Covid-related medicines.
At the informal meeting of the Trips Council on Thursday, it was also decided that other issues such as duration and implementation of the waiver will be discussed at a later stage depending on the first stage of talks, officials said.
Read:WTO to start Covid-19 vaccine supply negotiations amid clash on patents
Differences remain on how to ensure rapid and equitable access to vaccines and Covid-related medical products for all as the European Union and a few others are still opposing a revised proposal by India and South Africa seeking patent waivers on Covid-related medical products for three years, with a provision to review the duration annually.
“There was agreement on regular Trips Council sessions to push negotiations,” said an official.
The meeting was the first after the WTO members agreed to engage in text-based discussions on the proposal for waiver of intellectual protection rights for Covid medication.
At the Thursday meeting, the US expressed doubts about starting a discussion on the scope of the waiver instead of focusing on common objectives and said some proposals could be very expensive as they unfold over the next 5-10 years.
Read:WTO panel considers easing protections on COVID-19 vaccines
The discussions on the proposal will continue on July 6, 14 and 20 between which meetings among small groups would be held. The first consultation period will start soon, leading up to the first open-ended session and stock taking meeting on June 30.
The General Council of the WTO will check the progress of the negotiations on July 27-28, instead of July 21-22 as planned earlier, the official said.
EU seeks parity
The European Union, which has backed the use of flexibilities within existing frameworks such as compulsory licences instead of new ones, sought its submission to be treated on a par with the waiver proposal though India and South Africa argued that the two be discussed separately in parallel tracks.
“While the India and South Africa proposal is based on Article 9 of the WTO Agreement, what the EU has made is not a formal proposal. They can’t be treated equally,” said an expert on WTO issues.
Read:World trade primed for strong but uneven recovery after Covid-19 shock: WTO
South Africa argued that from the legal point of view of the discussions, the waiver proposal and the communication by the EU should be addressed on different tracks.
This article was first published on The Economic Times