On Monday 12 September, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) will publish a special report on the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines in the EU.
ABOUT THE TOPIC
When the EU's procurement process started in mid-2020, it was not known if or when a COVID-19 vaccine would reach the market. The Commission therefore supported different vaccine candidates and technologies to promote a fast response from the market and to spread the risk of failure and delay. By November 2021, the Commission had signed contracts to the value of €71 billion on behalf of the Member States to purchase up to 4.6 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses. Most of these contracts were advance purchase agreements, in which the Commission shared the development risk of a vaccine with the vaccine manufacturers and supported the preparation of at-scale production capacity through upfront payments from the EU budget.
ABOUT THE AUDIT
The audit report examines whether the Commission and Member States procured COVID-19 vaccines effectively up to the end of 2021. The auditors looked at the framework the EU set up, its negotiation strategy, and how the Commission followed up contract implementation.
FOR PRESS
The ECA press office will hold a virtual briefing on Monday 12 September. Journalists who wish to participate should contact
press@eca.europa.eu for details.
The report and press release will be published on the ECA website
eca.europa.eu at 5.00 p.m. CET on Monday 12 September.
The ECA member responsible for this report is Joëlle Elvinger.
The ECA's special reports set out the results of its audits of EU policies and programmes or management topics related to specific budgetary areas. The ECA selects and designs these audit tasks to be of maximum impact by considering the risks to performance or compliance, the level of income or spending involved, forthcoming developments and political and public interest.