You're listening.

You're listening to EU Watchdog Radio.

Welcome to a new episode of EU Watchdog Radio.

My name is Hans Van Schare, media officer at Corporate Europe Observatory, also known as CEO.

And in this special summer episode, we'll bring you the true story on how the European Union has been dealing with the pandemic for the past year

and why the EU seems to have a deep love affair with Big Pharma.

In two parts of this podcast, several experts will explain that the European Commission,

the executed branch of the EU, not only has a very Eurocentric way of dealing with the pandemic,

but also persists in a complete secrecy on how it negotiates with powerful pharmaceutical companies.

We are now July 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging in many parts of the world,

in countries in Africa, in India, Indonesia and so on.

And while many Europeans are happy to be able to go on holidays

and again enjoy certain freedoms, thanks to the COVID-19 vaccines,

in low- and middle-income countries, most people can only dream of having access to such a vaccine.

The head of the World Health Organization warned on July 12th

that the gap in COVID-19 supplies is usually uneven and equitable.

He said countries and regions should not order more millions of doses

before other countries have supplies to vaccinate their health workers and most vulnerable,

especially when the Delta variant is driving a new spike in COVID-19 cases and deaths.

While European countries are now planning to vaccinate teenagers and talk about booster jabs for their citizens,

in early July the whole African continent received only 31 million vaccine doses,

and of the 1.3 billion Africans only 7 million are fully vaccinated.

...