The Government will set maximum prices of antigens tests against the Covid this Thursday and confirms the veto for sale in supermarkets, hypermarkets and department store. Minister Spokesman, Isabel Rodríguez, has revealed that an interministerial executive commission will set the maximum prices of this product without clarifying when they will enter into force.
The Territorial Policy holder has confirmed that, despite the offering of the English Court, Carrefour or Alcampo, among others, to sell the tests in their establishments, the government only trusts "pharmaceutical distributors and professional colleges". The Minister Spokesman has justified the veto to mass distribution as allowed in Germany, France or Portugal and go hand in hand in this product from pharmacies "for safety and warranty to citizens".
Rodríguez has emphasized that the executive always acts in the pandemic with "prudence" and that for that reason it gives the exclusive sale of this product of first necessity to pharmacies without specifying what danger it involves allowing its sale on large areas as in neighboring countries.
Rodríguez assures that he will be the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, who will detail the maximum prices, but, as this diary published this Monday, the Covid tests are in Spain up to 271% more than in the main countries of the EU in which it is It has liberalized its sale and extended to large surfaces. In France and Germany they do not cost two euros per unit, while in Spain, such as average, they are sold between five and eight euros, according to data from the National Association of Large Distribution Companies (ANGED).
This association that brings together the English court, Carrefour, Alcampo or Ikea, among others, replicates the government that it would not be necessary to regulate prices if the veto will be lifted upon sale in the 55,000 establishments of the Spanish distributor sector. The competition and its ability to influence Chinese manufacturers would reduce prices, according to large surfaces.
The pharmacy sector, for its part, denies to be abusing prices and declares "victim" of the intermediaries, so it applaudes the regulation announced last Monday the president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, after a chronicle of this newspaper In which it highlighted the growing price difference between Spain and the main countries of the EU.
The minister has justified not having up to now a price regulation despite the massive purchases that citizens have had to do in recent months, because "the priority" at Christmas was to ensure the supply, which has been resolved.
Date Of Update: 11 January 2022, 09:18
