Nurses await the vaccine for COVID 19 by AstraZeneca at CUS Turin University Sports Center on March 14, 2021 in Turin, Italy.
Stefano Guidi | Getty Images News | Getty images
LONDON – Six members of the European Union have raised concerns about the way the block distributes Covid-19 vaccines after AstraZeneca again lowered its delivery targets.
Austria, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia wrote a letter to the European Commission on Saturday complaining that injections are not being given on a proportional basis between the 27 countries that make up the European Union.
“If this system were to continue, it would continue to create and exacerbate massive inequalities between member states by this summer,” the heads of state wrote in a letter obtained by CNBC.
It was initially agreed that vaccines purchased by the EU would be distributed in proportion to the size of a country’s population. But some countries introduced flexibility to the system, allowing them to choose a more specific vaccine based on price and maintenance conditions.
The European Commission responded to the letter by saying that distribution is a “transparent process” and that it was the decision of the Member States to introduce this flexibility.
Under this system, if a Member State decides not to include its pro rata allocation, the doses will be redistributed among the other interested Member States, “the committee said in a statement.
For example, according to media reports, Bulgaria chose to receive fewer Pfizer and BioNTech injections, the most expensive vaccines, and more from the injection developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. As a result, other EU countries were able to purchase the surplus Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines.
The Bulgarian government was not immediately available for comment on Monday when contacted by CNBC.
If we had not let the committee do this work on behalf of the European Union, the competition and the problems with which you started this interview would have been greater.
Paschal Donohoe
President of the Eurogroup
According to data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Bulgaria and the other signatories are among the EU countries with the lowest number of vaccines received to date.
They are concerned that without any change, some EU countries “could achieve herd immunity within a few weeks, while others would be far behind,” they said in their letter.
Their complaint follows news that AstraZeneca will not meet delivery targets in the coming months. The Swedish-British pharmaceutical company confirmed to CNBC on Monday that it will deliver 30 million doses to the EU by the end of the first quarter and a further 70 million doses in the second quarter.
These numbers are lower than what the block expected to receive.
“Why are they thinking of this now, knowing that Austria, like the 26 other Member States, is a member of the steering committee and has been informed of the previous allocations like the others”, a European official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the problem, CNBC told Sunday.
This comment suggests that the six countries could have handled the matter internally rather than writing a letter and making it public.
Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer Pascal Donohoe told CNBC on Monday that if the European Commission did not oversee vaccine distribution, the problems “would have been greater”.
It is expected to be discussed at the next European summit later this month.