Vaccine delays put EU unity under pressure
Austria and Denmark join Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary in sourcing their own supply
‘If all the smaller chickens are leaving the nest, it begs the question why we initiated joint procurement at all’
AUSTRIA and Denmark have become the latest countries to break away from the EU’S vaccines strategy, raising fears that the bloc’s unity in the face of the coronavirus pandemic is crumbling.
Sebastian Kurz, the Austrian chancellor, said on Monday that his country would work with Israel and Denmark on second generation vaccines and “no longer rely on the EU”.
It is widely seen as a rebuke to the European Commission-led joint procurement scheme for vaccines, which negotiated supplies as a bloc and lagged far behind the UK, Israel and US in the speed of its rollout.
Mr Kurz told Germany’s Bild newspaper that the European Medicines Agency had been slow in approving a vaccine. “We must therefore prepare for further mutations and should no longer be dependent only on the EU for the production of second-generation vaccines,” he said.
Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, said she had already bid for supplies of Israel’s surplus vaccines. Only 7.54 doses per 100 people had been administered in the EU, compared with 31.58 in the UK and 89.99 in Israel. Austria had given 7.4 doses per 100 people and Denmark 11 doses.
Mr Kurz is due to travel with Ms Frederiksen to see Israel’s rapid vaccine rollout in a visit that will cause blushes in Brussels. An EU diplomat said the joint procurement strategy was “born out of fear” that smaller countries would miss out. “That said, if all the smaller chickens are leaving the nest, it begs the question why we initiated joint procurement at all,” he said.
The European Commission’s preference is for member states to stick to the joint approach because side deals sap the bloc’s negotiating power.
EU rules allow national governments
to approve and buy vaccines that are not part of the joint scheme, such as the Russian Sputnik and Chinese vaccines.
Other EU leaders have already moved to secure supplies rather than wait for the EU scheme, which involved countries negotiating as a bloc to drive down prices. On Monday, Andrzej Duda, Poland’s president, talked to Xi Jinping, China’s leader, about a possible purchase of Chinese vaccines. On the same day, neighbouring Slovakia took the first delivery of 2million doses of the Russian Sputnik vaccine, which has not been approved by the European Medicines Agency. And Andrej Babiš, the Czech prime minister, said he would not wait for the EU regulator before buying Sputnik.
Hungary has already approved and bought Sputnik without waiting for the EU regulator and is also the first member state to approve the Chinese vaccine. On Sunday, Viktor Orbán, its prime minister, posted a photo of himself being vaccinated with the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine. Budapest has bought 2million doses of Sputnik and 5million jabs of Sinopharm.
A European Commission spokesman said: “For our vaccines, we go through the European Medicines Agency because we want to ensure efficacy and safety. What member states do in addition to that, it’s their responsibility.”