Austrian chancellor: Some EU states have secret vaccine contracts

Kurz’s feedback denied by EU spokesman, who downplayed the claims of backroom offers.

Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on Friday urged that some European nations might have signed “secret contracts” with vaccine firms to obtain extra vaccines than they had been entitled to based mostly on the European Union guidelines.

EU members have agreed that vaccines ought to be distributed amongst nations based mostly on inhabitants dimension, however Kurz stated after evaluating whole procurement between member states, it turned clear that “deliveries don’t observe the per capita quota system”.

“There are clues that time to so-called bazaars the place extra agreements between member states and pharmaceutical firms had been made,” Kurz stated.

“Malta will obtain thrice as many doses per capita as Bulgaria till the top of July,” he stated.

“The Netherlands wouldn’t solely obtain extra doses of vaccine per capita till the top of June than Germany, however virtually twice as many as Croatia,” Kurz stated.

“That is in clear contradiction to the political targets of the EU,” he stated.

However an EU spokesman downplayed the claims of backroom offers.

“Member states might resolve to ask much less or extra of a given vaccine, and that is mentioned between the member states,” Stefan de Keersmaecker stated.

“It’s doable on this context, following the result of the discussions between the member states, {that a} new distribution key’s agreed upon with the corporate,” he stated.

The EU has come below fireplace for its sluggish vaccine rollout, which it has blamed on provide and supply issues.

European nations lag behind america, Israel and the UK by way of the proportion of the inhabitants that has already acquired at the least one dose.