Vaccine pact, Newsletter

Key diary dates

• Monday 23 June: EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels.
• Tuesday 24-Wednesday 25 June: NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands.
• Wednesday 25 June: Gavi vaccine alliance’s high-level pledging summit in Brussels.
• Thursday 26 June: EU Council Summit in Brussels.

In spotlight

On Wednesday international vaccine alliance Gavi will stage a ‘high-level pledging summit’ co-hosted by the EU and the Gates Foundation, set to feature appearances from the presidents of the Parliament, Commission and Council – Roberta Metsola, Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa – alongside tech royalty Bill Gates.

Gates will be in the headlights in Brussels this week, since on Tuesday – before the Gavi event – he’s set to participate in a debate with MEPs on the European Parliament’s Development Committee.

The Gavi fund raiser event aims to raise at least US$ 9 billion (€7.8 billion) from donors to fund vaccinations, predominantly in the global south.

In February, President Trump took executive action to dismantle USAID, the US Agency for International Development, eliminating 90% of all American foreign aid contracts.

The agency provided to impoverished and third-world countries around the world, with missions primarily concentrated in Africa and Asia, with vaccinations against diseases such as HIV.

Given that the United States is estimated to have provided 26% of all aid supplied to African continent, it’s expected that the impact of the funding freeze could cut total aid to Africa by 20%. 

The EU has provided €3.2 billion in financing to Gavi since 2003. There was enhanced cooperation between the two during the coronavirus pandemic in the COVAX programme. EU institutions together with individual member states have also contributed €2.55 billion to Gavi’s programmes, amounting to one third of the budget of the campaign.

There’ll be a focus on EU pledges and the extent to which Europe is able or willing to take up the baton from US contributions, or at least signal its willingness to do so.

Policy newsmakers

Sperm donor control

A coalition of EU health ministers wants to set international limits on the number of children a single sperm or egg donor can produce, putting an end to the “super sperm donor” phenomenon. The proposal was introduced in Luxembourg last week by Sweden and Belgium during a meeting of EU health ministers, and it is backed by four other countries: France, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Spain. A Dutch sperm donor suspected of fathering over 550 children worldwide and other similar cases raise “new concerns about the potential psychosocial impact on donor-conceived children and donors,” Swedish Health Minister Acko Ankarberg Johansson said. Belgian Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke said that international limits would only be practical if supported by a comprehensive cross-border donor register. “We badly need a Europe-wide quota supported by an EU register to ensure proper implementation,” he said.

Policy Poll

Data brief