The member countries of the European Union were clearly divided Thursday on a solution to allocate 10 million doses of the vaccine against the coronavirus developed by Pfizer / BioNTech in order to help the underprivileged.

After two days of negotiations, discussions between the ambassadors of the 27 member countries stumbled on the refusal of Austria, Slovenia and the Czech Republic to support a compromise proposed by Portugal, which holds the six-monthly presidency of the EU, according to sources. diplomatic.

These ten million doses correspond to a lot that BioNTech / Pfizer has committed to deliver in the second quarter, and are part of 100 million doses that should not initially be available until the third quarter of 2021.

The doses ordered by the EU to the laboratories are distributed among the 27 in proportion to their population. If a state decides not to buy its share, its doses are redistributed among the countries concerned.

However, some countries have not asked for sufficient doses or have relied too heavily on the AstraZeneca vaccine, affected by severe production and distribution problems.

In mid-March, led by Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, the leaders of the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Latvia called for the establishment of a “correction mechanism” to obtain additional doses, believing that they had been harmed by the distribution system.

According to the EU, the countries with the most difficulties from the point of view of vaccines are Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Latvia and Estonia.

Portugal presented proposals to show “solidarity” towards these five countries, assigning them more doses than their usual quota.

In contrast, Austria, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, which also asked for more doses, suddenly rejected the proposed solution.

Categorized in: