EU Council President Charles Michel has accused China and Russia of using their CoV vaccines as propaganda. “We shouldn’t be misled by China and Russia,” Michel said today. Both “regimes” would deliver vaccine to other countries “severely limited, but very publicly effective”. The EU, however, would “not use vaccines for propaganda purposes”.
In view of delivery bottlenecks from vaccine manufacturers and criticism of the EU’s vaccination strategy, member states such as Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are increasingly looking to the east. The Russian vaccine “Sputnik V” and the Chinese product from Sinopharm are not approved in the EU. The EU countries can, however, issue national emergency permits.
Push for rapid EU approval
In the past few weeks, Russia had been pressing for a quick test for “Sputnik V” approval in the EU. On Thursday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) also initiated a “rolling review” to check approval. However, the EU Commission remained cautious about the question of whether it actually wanted to include the drug in its vaccine portfolio.
Michel defended the EU’s vaccination strategy in principle. Brussels invested in the development of CoV vaccines at an early stage. “Without Europe, it would not have been possible to develop and produce multiple types of vaccines in less than a year.”
No “vaccination nationalism”
The Council President also rejected the accusation of “vaccination nationalism”. Because of the dispute with the British-Swedish manufacturer AstraZeneca about missing vaccine deliveries, the EU has introduced a mechanism to control exports to third countries and, if necessary, to prevent them. “But the EU has never stopped exporting.” Great Britain and the USA, on the other hand, have completely banned the export of CoV vaccines from the start.
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