COVID-19 apart from putting severe pressure on healthcare systems worldwide and causing global economic meltdown has created a number of other challenges. One of the core ones is the question of responsibility. This issue was raised by the European Parliament in September 2020 in the discussion with the representatives of the pharma industry and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in January 2021 in the Resolution "Covid-19 vaccines: ethical, legal and practical considerations".

As for today, the EMA gave the "conditional authorisation" for the marketing of both the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines on the territory of the European Union but the final authorization will be given only by 31 December 2023 for Pfizer and by 30 June 2024 for Moderna. What does it mean for pharma, for governments, and for people? How does the "conditional authorisation" relate to the social or political pressure resulting from a medical emergency? And what consequences are there for keeping restrictions of freedoms in force?

The tendency is for questions on responsibility to be raised by people's representatives – MPs and MEPs – but we hear no substantial discussion on the subject on either political or governmental level, nor in the media. Yet, answering this question is crucial to gaining the trust of people who doubt whether to vaccinate or not and who is in charge should something go wrong at any point.

Therefore, the goal of the event is to address the question of responsibility from multiple perspectives to breach the existing gap in a debate. Initial inputs will be followed by a Q&A session for those who join the ZOOM stream. Web streaming will also be available on Facebook and YouTube.