"Vaccine prices are confidential, in everyone’s interest", insists the European Commission
"On Friday the European Commission reaffirmed the need to keep the prices of Covid-19 vaccines confidential, "in everyone’s interest", a few hours after Belgian Secretary of State Eva De Bleeker disclosed a table of figures."
"This confidentiality is contractual and "there are good reasons for that", a Commission spokesperson said.
"It is in the interest of the companies concerned, but also of the Commission, the Member States and citizens. Because if this information were to be published, it would weaken our position in other negotiations that are still ongoing", he explained.
The Commission says it understands the demand for transparency on vaccine pre-purchase contracts, but stresses that such contracts would simply not be concluded without a confidentiality clause. "It is precisely these clauses that guarantee the vaccines will be delivered"."
"A table that is not final"
"On Thursday afternoon, while the budget debates were dragging on in the Chamber, Ms De Bleeker had briefly published on Twitter a table showing the number and price of doses of the various vaccines pre-reserved by the Commission for the Member States (AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi-GSK, BioNTech-Pfizer, CureVac and Moderna).
She then admitted to having gone too far with transparency, while insisting that she had not jeopardised anything and warning that the table of figures was neither final nor official."
"This gaffe did, however, get Ms De Bleeker into the American press. The New York Times deduced from it that the EU was paying 12 euros per dose of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine, whereas the official price is 15.9 euros (19.5 dollars). Moderna would reportedly charge the EU 18 dollars (14.7 euros) per dose, whereas it had announced it was counting on a range of 25 to 37 dollars (20.4 to 30.2 euros)."
"Open Vld Deputy Prime Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne came to Ms De Bleeker’s rescue, pointing out on Twitter that these prices were therefore lower than those that had circulated in the media in recent months. "So: why all the fuss? ", he said, playing it down."
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