The Role of the Joint Procurement Agreement during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Assessing Its Usefulness and Discussing Its Potential to Support a European Health Union

Abstract

In 2014, the European Joint Procurement Agreement (JPA) was introduced as an innovative instrument to organise the procurement of vaccines and medications in preparation for pandemics. An overriding purpose of the JPA is to secure equitable and cost-effective access to medical supplies for participating EU Member States during serious health crises. This article aims to understand the current use of the JPA in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Post-analysis of the recent use of the JPA, the article will discuss how the regional procurement mechanism can be strengthened to support the development of a European Health Union. In particular, the article will firstly question whether the four recent JPA procurement actions facilitated equitable access to medical supplies and services. Secondly, it will ask whether the centralised procurement actions preserved the integrity of the Internal Market. The importance and originality of this study are that it addresses an instrument, the JPA, which has been largely overlooked by legal scholars, and it explores how the provisions for the joint procurement of medical countermeasures as included in Article 5 of Decision 1082/2013/EU on serious cross-border threats to health could be extended to support the functioning of a European Health Union.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Essential Medicines and Personal Protective Equipment Availability and Prices in Saudi Arabia

“…Nearly 30% of participants indicated that there were inadequate supplies of PPE. Similar to essential medications, PPE shortages have been reported in the United States (US), European Union (EU), and globally in varying degrees [ 5 , 27 , 28 ]. The reported shortage of PPE in this study is consistent with previously published studies that reported shortages of PPE and the higher risk of infection and transmission associated with these shortages [ 29 , 30 ].…”

“…NUPCO was able to seamlessly conclude deals for the acquisition of vital equipment such as COVID-19 testing kits to expand testing throughout the country early during the pandemic [ 32 ]. Likewise, the Joint Procurement Agreement (JPA) in the EU was also effective in providing essential medications and equipment to member states quickly and efficiently and preventing price gouging and drug and supply hoarding [ 27 ]. Moreover, incidents such as taking a complete monopoly of the July 2020 production of remdesivir adversely affected global supply chains [ 32 , 33 , 34 ].…”

The European Health Union: European Union’s Concern about Health for All. Concepts, Definition, and Scenarios

“…To achieve the EHU, there are two major key points. The first one is the political will as no policy can be achieved without it [ 12 , 40 , 51 , 53 , 54 , 57 , 58 ]. The second is the funding [ 40 , 41 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 50 , 51 , 55 , 59 ].…”

“…However, a full centralized approach is not considered necessary [ 52 ]. This could be counteracted by the use of intergovernmental mechanisms as the Joint procurement (JPA) [ 43 , 58 ]. Lastly, a treaty change is envisioned by some authors with the possibility to insert the EHU in the Treaty’s text [ 39 , 46 ].…”

“…Although this program is the largest health program to date, and is set to be independent [ 40 ], the financial situation of the agencies as the ECDC should have a sound base and not depend on project funding. The JPA could also be expanded and be a step forward in the development of the EHU [ 58 ]. As a voluntary procedure, it would focus on a more intergovernmental side of a EHU development.…”