Respond to new variants of the coronavirus, acceleration of vaccination, establishment of a joint certificate: the Twenty-Seven meet Thursday evening for a new summit by videoconference devoted to the fight against the pandemic.
This ninth virtual meeting of EU heads of state and government on the health crisis will take place from 6 p.m.
And this, at a time when several countries, such as Germany, are toughening their measures to try to counter the spread of variants of the coronavirus (British, South African), which are more contagious.
The Dutch government plans to put in place a curfew from 8:30 pm In France, it has been brought up to 6 pm since Saturday.
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But Europeans are also anxious to preserve the functioning of the internal market and in particular cross-border transport of goods.
The Germans propose that tests and quarantines be required within the EU for travelers coming from areas particularly affected by variants, according to a document seen by AFP.
Paris said it was in favor of health checks at intra-European borders.
On the eve of the summit, the ambassadors of the 27 reached an agreement on mutual recognition of antigenic tests, a measure which France defended in particular.
To detect coronavirus mutations, the European Commission urges member countries to increase sequencing, deeming the current level to be insufficient.
She also called on them to speed up vaccination, protecting 70% of the adult population by the end of the summer, and 80% of health workers and those over 80 by March.
Growing impatience
The Twenty-Seven must vote on these ambitious targets, at a time when delays in the delivery of the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech - one of two authorized in the EU - have led a country like Denmark to revise downwards 10% of its ambitions for the first quarter.
The unexpected Friday announcement from the laboratory angered EU countries, whose slowness of vaccination campaigns have drawn criticism.
Italy has announced an imminent legal action against Pfizer.
"We have a contract and we need these doses now,"
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday, who had obtained assurances from Pfizer last week that despite the delays, all doses pledges for the first quarter would be delivered at that time.
In addition to Pfizer-BioNTech, the Moderna vaccine is also authorized in the EU, and the opinion of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on that of AstraZeneca, already in use in the UK, is expected by the end of the month.
Ursula von der Leyen said she was waiting
"for Johnson & Johnson and Curevac soon"
, judging the vaccination goals
"achievable taking into account the number of doses that will arrive"
.
The EU has signed a total of six contracts with pharmaceutical companies for vaccine orders, and is in discussions with two others (Novavax and Valneva), for a potential of more than 2.5 billion doses.
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In a sign of growing impatience, four countries - Austria, Greece, the Czech Republic and Denmark - have written a letter to Council President Charles Michel to speed up the EMA vaccine approval process.
Greece is also calling for the establishment of a “standardized” vaccination certificate within the EU, a proposal supported by the Commission, which will be discussed at the summit.
Athens wants to save its tourism industry, but the idea of using this certificate to allow vaccinated people to travel arouses the reluctance of several countries, including France.
Discussions on a vaccine passport are considered premature, given the low proportion of the vaccinated population, and some like Belgium are concerned about discrimination against unvaccinated people.
In addition, the effect of the vaccine on the transmission of Covid-19 is still uncertain, underlines Germany.
The debate on Thursday is to focus on establishing common standards for these certificates.
The idea is to allow mutual recognition of these documents, and to avoid the situation that has arisen for the tests, explains an EU official.
He said that ultimately the goal would be to have international recognition, like the WHO notebook for vaccination against yellow fever.