The Palace of the Nation, Brussels (Photo from www.fed-parl.be)
The Kingdom of Belgium assures the Philippines and other countries about the availability of the COVID-19 vaccines’ distribution.
In the note verbale furnished to THEPHILBIZNEWS sent by the Embassy of the Kingdom of Belgium, the Belgian Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation disclosed the new procedure for requesting an export license to export COVID-19 vaccines outside of the European Union (EU).
It underscored that it is “within the framework of this new procedure, these companies that will be able to fulfill their contractual obligations towards third countries and the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines will not be interrupted.”
Belgium being the epicenter of the manufacturing of vaccines during this pandemic where two vaccines are being produced – Pfizer and J&J Janssen. guarantees that the COVID-19 vaccines will be available for all countries, including the Philippines.
The publication was already made about the European Commission Implementing Regulation 2021/111 on January 30, 2021, wherein companies are required to request an export license before each shipment.
This measure has been adopted with the purpose of enhancing transparency in vaccine delivery and will be in place until March 31, 2021, For a list of the exports that are not subject to the measure, the Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs refers to paragraph 5 of the Implementing Regulation:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32021R0111&from=EN.
The Belgian Government takes pride in the fact that Belgium is the home of the production facilities of some of the world’s most renowned pharmaceutical companies and will spare no effort to ensure that within the framework of this new procedure, these companies will be able to fulfill their contractual obligations towards third countries and the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines will not be interrupted.
The competent authority to grant the aforementioned export license is the Federal Public Service Economy, SMEs, Middle Classes and Energy.
According to the European Commission, the country where the final manufacturing handling of the vaccine is done before it is shipped to its destination, is responsible for granting the export license. As such, Belgium is responsible for granting export licenses for COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer and soon also Johnson & Johnson. Export licenses for exports of vaccines from other suppliers shall be dealt with by other competent EU Member States.
The requesting company will receive a decision on the granting of an export license within 72 hours after a complete request has been submitted through the abovementioned.
Interested companies can electronically submit a request via the e-mail address becovid@economie.fgov.be.
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