The EU does not fully agree on vaccine redistribution

The pharmaceutical company has promised to deliver ten million much-needed doses by the end of June, rather than later this year. The question was whether to change the previous vaccine formula, which distributes doses according to the countries’ populations.

24 of the EU countries will distribute the doses according to a more solidary formula than before, where five countries that suffer extra during the pandemic will receive a larger share of the doses than otherwise. These are Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Latvia and Estonia. In return, for example, Germany will receive 500,000 fewer of these doses than they would otherwise receive.

Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Austria did not agree on this distribution and receive doses according to the old formula. The disagreement began with criticism from the Austrian Prime Minister, Sebastian Kurz. Austria did not use all its doses immediately, and these doses were then bought up by other EU countries. According to Kurz, this has led to Austria lagging behind.

However, figures show that the country is not at all among the worst off, and by the end of last week, 17.8 percent of the country’s adult population had received at least one dose.