In the 'manifesto' to which Lusa had access - which has the former president of Infarmed, José Aranda da Silva, as the main author and underwriters as diverse as former presidential candidates Ana Gomes and Marisa Matias, the former director General of Health, Constantino Sakellarides, or Bishop Januário Torgal Ferreira, warns of the urgent need to increase the speed of the vaccination process at European level.

“It is incomprehensible the lack of vaccines observed today in Portugal and in Europe, which have placed European citizens in a position of subordination in relation to vaccine producers. The arguments put forward by the European Commission regarding the nature of the contracts, the existing production capacity and the agreed prices are not acceptable”, says the appeal.

The initiative calls for a different stance from the European Commission to “demonstrate fully and definitively its ability to overcome financial and industrial interests” with pharmaceutical companies, in addition to recalling the legal possibilities at the time.

“In the face of the catastrophe that we are experiencing, and in view of the tragic insufficiency of the European response, citizens are calling for urgent measures to be taken that are capable of protecting people's health. These measures demand the transparent sharing of information, the use of legislation that was foreseen for catastrophe situations and the mobilisation of resources and productive capacities”, defends the appeal.

Thus, these Portuguese personalities reiterate that "now is the time for the European Commission to publish the vaccine production sites existing in the Union" and to "invoke the European legislation on industrial property to allow production in factories of different laboratories", in the sense to ensure that the population is vaccinated by summer.