Idafe Martin
12/18/2020 10:03
Clarín.com
World
Updated 12/18/2020 10:04
The centralization of the purchase of coronavirus vaccines in the European Commission for the 27 Member States of the European Union
makes the doses
substantially
cheaper
.
But the contracts, which set those prices, carry
confidentiality clauses
to keep them
secret
.
Despite how quickly information usually leaks in Brussels, the European Executive managed to keep that secret
for weeks
and in some cases months.
One of the reasons that explain the confidentiality of these contracts is that the European Commission would be obtaining
prices for
European governments
lower
than those that pharmaceutical companies would be asking from other countries.
In return, the pharmaceutical companies would ask
for
discretion
to be able to
charge more
to other countries.
Many MEPs have spent months demanding the European Commission to
publish the prices
it agreed with the pharmaceutical companies and reminding it that vaccines will be paid for with national funds that come out of the taxpayer's pocket.
Brussels
flatly refused,
claiming those confidentiality clauses, included in the contracts signed with six pharmaceutical companies.
Until
Eva De Bleeker
arrived
.
The centralization of the purchase of vaccines in the European Commission for the 27 Member States of the European Union makes the doses cheaper.
Photo: AFP
De Bleeker is the Secretary of State for Budgets of the Belgian Government.
On Thursday afternoon, he explained to the Belgian Parliament that his country planned to spend 279 million euros on vaccines in 2021.
And immediately afterwards, he published a table on Twitter that includes
the price of each vaccine
, pharmacist by pharmacist, how many Belgium will buy and the total cost, general and per pharmacist.
De Bleeker
thus
broke
the confidentiality clause.
Hours later, he deleted the tweet, which was already
circulating generously
on social networks.
To apologize, he said that the publication of the tweet had been a mistake by his press team.
According to its price table, what European governments will pay for each dose of vaccine will be the following:
Oxford / Astra Zeneca 1.78 euros
Johnson & Johnson $ 8.50
Sanofi / GSK 7.56 euros
Curevac 10 euros
BioNTech / Pfizer 12 euros
Modern $ 18
These prices
contrast
with those that are publicly known.
The Oxford / Astra Zeneca officially costs 2.9 euros per dose.
Johnson & Johnson's 8.5 euros ($ 10.4), Sanofi / GSK's 10 euros, Pfizer / BioNTech's 16.5 euros and Moderna's 21 euros ($ 25.7).
They seem like a few euros or dollars per dose, but Europe is committed to the purchase of more than
1.8 billion doses.
De Bleeker's tweet shows that Belgium will buy 8.2 million doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, 4.8 million from Johnson & Johnson, 8.2 million from Sanofi / GSK, 5.4 million from Pfizer / BioNTech, 6.1 million from Curevac and 1.9 million from Moderna.
Belgium plans to buy some 34 million doses, a figure that multiplies its population by three.
Belgian MPs asked De Bleeker if the publication of the prices and the breach of the confidentiality of the contracts could have consequences for the country, such as the pharmaceutical companies
breaking the contracts
with Belgium.
De Bleeker said the mistake "does not endanger anything."
But Pfizer already announced on Friday morning, without referring to consequences, that it considers that
the
confidentiality
clause has been violated
.
The European Commission said: "We do not comment on what happened in Belgium, but the prices of the vaccines are confidential."
Although they are all published.
Brussels, correspondent
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