Arab Press

بالشعب و للشعب
Tuesday, Oct 07, 2025

EU yielded to commercial interests over COVID-19 vaccines, NGOs say

EU yielded to commercial interests over COVID-19 vaccines, NGOs say

The agreements signed between the European Commission and pharmaceutical companies to roll out COVID-19 vaccines offered significant long-term benefits to the corporations involved to the detriment of public health and global equality, research by NGOs has found.
“Private interests exerted undue influence over European policymakers during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a crying lack of transparency on publicly funded vaccine contracts which left the public with more questions than answers," Rowan Dunn, EU Advocacy Coordinator at Global Health Advocates, a French NGO, has said.

Two reports released on Thursday and authored by Global Health Advocates and STOPAIDS, a UK-based non-profit, accuse the EU's executive of redacting contracts with pharmaceutical companies and accommodating industry requests on such things as pricing, intellectual property and confidentiality requirements in a bid to quickly roll out the vaccines for its population.

This was despite the fact that some of these confidentiality requirements weren’t consistent with EU legislation.

“Protecting commercial interests came at the expense of supporting policy interventions that could have increased global vaccine access, and which harmed transparency”, the report reads. “With an unaccountable driver, the public were taken for a ride”.

For Belgian MEP Marc Botenga (The Left), who is cited in the report, "there was no real transparency in the contract negotiations. On the contracts, there have been minor steps forward - under pressure."

“So, from the first contracts basically the Commission outsourced transparency, meaning they will give you what the company tells us we can give you. You are in a situation where the company decides”, he added.

EU Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly ruled maladministration on the part of the Commission last year after the EU's executive said it could not release text exchanges between its president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the CEO of Pfizer.

The Commission said following the request from the EU's watchdog for the messages to be released that they had not been kept as official EU documents because "due to their short-lived and ephemeral nature" text messages in general "do not contain important information relating to policies, activities and decisions of the Commission".

O’Reilly said then that the Commission's answer "leaves the regrettable impression of an EU institution that is not forthcoming on matters of significant public interest."

The NGOs' reports also concluded that the global vaccine rollout created levels of global inequality so great that many called it a “vaccine apartheid”.

While high-income countries largely had widespread access to vaccines and medical countermeasures for their populations, low and middle-income countries could not access the same conditions in their fight against Covid-19.

Global Health Advocates and STOPAIDS argue in the reports that this inequality can be explained by the fact that “commercial, economic and geopolitical” considerations were placed above global health considerations.

“When it came to our journey out of the pandemic the route toward equitable access could have been a direct one, but with Big Pharma in the driver’s seat choosing to follow private interests, access to vaccines for lower-income countries was likely denied," STOPAIDS' Advocacy Manager James Cold said.

Pharmaceutical companies sold the vast majority of their doses to the richest countries in the world - a strategy denounced as putting profits first, especially as companies wouldn’t allow poorer countries to produce the life-saving vaccine on their own because of intellectual property rules.

Laid down in trade deals, these allowed pharma corporations to operate as monopolies, with no responsibility to share the knowledge they owned, despite how much society needed it, the reports stated.

At the start of the pandemic, the EU made several statements on the importance of global vaccine solidarity. However, the report said that these promises weren't turned into concrete actions.

“Instead, EU actions translated into an every-country-for-itself attitude, which effectively led to a form of gatekeeping of COVID-19 health technologies," it added.

According to data from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), nearly 73% of people in high-income countries have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, compared to just 30% in low-income countries.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Arab Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Syria Holds First Elections Since Fall of Assad
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Trump Backs Putin’s Land-for-Peace Proposal Amid Kyiv’s Rejection
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
Iranian Protection Offers Chinese Vehicle Shipments a Cost Advantage over Japanese and Korean Makers
United States Sells Luxury Yacht Amadea, Valued at Approximately $325 Million, in First Sale of a Seized Russian Yacht Since the Invasion of Ukraine
Saudi Arabia accelerates renewables to curb domestic oil use
Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez announce engagement
Asia-Pacific dominates world’s busiest flight routes, with South Korea’s Jeju–Seoul corridor leading global rankings
Private Welsh island with 19th-century fort listed for sale at over £3 million
×