COVID-19 | Merkel defends the slow start of vaccination in Europe

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Isabelle LE PAGE and Yannick PASQUET
France Media Agency

The German Chancellor at the same time reaffirmed that all adult Germans, or 73 million people, would be offered a vaccination “by the end of the summer”.

“It is true that it was slower on certain points, but there are also good reasons that it is slower”, she assured after more than five hours of discussions during a summit with the chiefs German regional governments, representatives of the European Union and pharmaceutical groups.

Angela Merkel explained these delays by the fact that, unlike in the United Kingdom for example, the Europeans have chosen not to issue an emergency authorization for the first vaccine available, that of Pfizer / BioNTech, or the following ones. , those of Moderna and AstraZeneca.

Reason: to ensure the reliability of products and thus gain citizens’ “confidence” in vaccines.

Long struggle over responsibility

The Chancellor also stressed that negotiations with pharmaceutical companies had been long and arduous.

“We fought for a long time”, in particular on the question of the responsibility of the laboratories in the respect of delivery deadlines, she insisted.

“I understand the disappointment” of the population, admitted M^me Merkel, “because everyone thought that given the volume of orders” of vaccines, the latter “would arrive much faster”.

But she stressed that it would not be possible, in the first quarter in any case, to increase the production capacities of manufacturers beyond what is already planned.

Just before this meeting, several laboratories committed to speeding up their production.

The German BioNTech has announced up to 75 million additional doses of its vaccine developed with the American Pfizer in the second quarter for the EU.

The pharmaceutical giant Bayer has meanwhile committed to producing the vaccine of another German laboratory, CureVac, which is currently in the process of certification.

And the Anglo-Swedish group AstraZeneca, which is under the wrath of European leaders because of major production delays, will provide nine million additional doses compared to what was offered last week, or 40 million in total.

The German media show no mercy for the EU, accused of ordering vaccines too late and of having badly negotiated. Daily picture speaks of “fiasco”.

The sling is all the more virulent as the population in Germany, as elsewhere in Europe, is at its wit’s end in the face of restrictions linked to the coronavirus.

Europe currently has a lower vaccination record than that of the United Kingdom, where Brexit supporters see it as confirmation of the merits of leaving the EU.

The President of the European Commission, the German Ursula von der Leyen, finds herself particularly in the crosshairs, some, like the German far-right party AfD, demanding her departure.

“She took a serious blow, but I do not think (she) is going to leave,” said a European diplomatic source, however.

Election problem for Merkel’s party

The slowness of vaccination is also likely to weaken the Chancellor a few months before the parliamentary elections in September in Germany.

The good level of its popularity rating and that of its conservative party for months has rested largely on a management considered so far effective of the pandemic, to which the first European economy had resisted rather well in the spring before be hit hard by the second wave this winter.

But the failures of the vaccination campaign gave the impression of a loss of control by the one who has ruled her country for almost 16 years and caused a stir even in her government coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

The Minister of Finance and SPD candidate for chancellery Olaf Scholz has thus multiplied the attacks against the Minister of Health Jens Spahn, and indirectly Angela Merkel, by demanding a real “vaccination strategy”.

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