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The EU’s vaccine strategy remains a red-hot topic across the continent and in Brussels, as vaccine production delay has caused a deep row between the bloc and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, and also raised questions over the EU’s approach.
The EU Commission came forward with a proposal to be able to refuse exports of vaccines from the EU if there is a shortage of supply under the contract agreed by the EU and the specific vaccine producer. The proposal is expected to be adopted by member states swiftly.
The European Parliament’s budget committee will on Monday (1 February) discuss with commission official and chief vaccine negotiator Sandra Gallina how the EU budget has been used to support the EU’s Covid-19 vaccines strategy.
The EU provided €2.7bn in 2020 to vaccine producers in payments to ramp up their development and manufacturing capacity.
Moscow trip
The EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell is going to Moscow on Friday (5 February), even though leading opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, is in prison.
Borrell is to meet Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and has said it is because of Navalny’s arrest that the EU needs to reach out and talk to Russian authorities.
Navalny was poisoned by Russian president Vladimir Putin’s FSB spy service using a UN-banned chemical weapon last year. It is unclear whether Borrell with meet with him, or his associates.
“It is important that he meets Mr Navalny and Mr Navalny’s closest collaborators”, Latvian MEP Sandra Kalniete from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) said, who is responsible for foreign affairs in her group
Cancer plan
On Wednesday (3 February), the commission will unveil the Beating Cancer Plan, and the day after the parliament’s special committee on beating cancer will discuss the plan with health commissioner Stella Kyriakides.
The hearing will cover the potential use of mRNA technology, also used in the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines, to help treat cancer.
On Wednesday, the parliament’s EPP group is organising an event with commission vice-president Margaritis Schinas, and commissioners Mariya Gabriel and Kyriakides on the matter.
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