Von der Leyen acknowledges errors in the corona approach | Abroad

The German has come under heavy fire, especially domestically, for the slow start of the European vaccination campaign. “It is a fact that today we are not where we want to be in the fight against the virus,” said ‘VDL’ Wednesday. She said the EU has been too slow in approving vaccines and too optimistic about production. “Maybe we were also too sure that the orders would be delivered on time,” she added.

Shoot

The EU has been slower to approve Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines than the US and UK. But the story was always that no corners were to be cut and a careful approval procedure from the medicine watchdog EMA had to be followed. The British, for example, approved vaccines with an emergency procedure and took on the legal consequences for side effects. A riskier strategy, but one that has put them ahead.

According to von der Leyen, 26 million vaccines have now been distributed in the EU. The goal is still to vaccinate 70 percent of the population of nearly 450 million people by the end of the summer. The ambitious target was set just before a gigantic feud with AstraZeneca ignited almost three weeks ago after the pharmaceutical company announced as a bolt from the blue that it would be able to deliver less than half of the 80 million vaccines that were promised for the first quarter.

Production lines

Von der Leyen mainly points to external factors as the reason for the slow start. The start-up of production lines takes a lot of time. A new task force, under the direction of European Commissioner Breton (Internal Market), should help to solve the problems, for example by making companies work together. For example, the French Sanofi will now produce for Pfizer / BioNTech. Forced sharing of patents or knowledge, especially on the left in the European Parliament, requires this, is still a bridge too far.

The EPP, the largest group, wants to allocate an extra 10 billion euros to speed up the production of vaccines. The topic will be a key topic at the next European Leaders’ Summit in March.

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