Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovic is stepping back due to a government crisis over the purchase of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. He is willing to give up his prime minister and remain only as a minister in the future.
The prime minister previously ordered the purchase of some 2 million doses of the Russian vaccine, but did not consult his coalition members. The drug has not yet been approved in the EU; the coalition partners had wanted to await that EMA approval.
By offering his resignation, Matovic hopes to end the disagreement within his cabinet. One of the smaller coalition parties, Za Ludi, previously threatened to leave the government over the issue.
Slovakia has been badly affected by the corona virus. In the country, which has about 5.5 million inhabitants, 9,000 people have succumbed to Covid-19. At the beginning of this month, about 4,000 corona patients were in the hospital.
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