Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina are still waiting to receive their first vaccine shipments, while implementations in Albania and North Macedonia have so far been limited to a few hundred people.
The Western Balkan countries are important allies and possible future members of the European Union, but have been left out of the bloc’s immediate vaccine supply plans.
The EU has secured more than 2.3 billion doses of various coronavirus vaccines and said it hopes to share some of them with others. It also set aside € 70 million ($ 85 million) for the Western Balkans region to buy some of these doses in the future, but as its launch was slow and delayed, those countries are still waiting.
And, as relatively wealthy countries – at least in the global context – they are also not a priority for programs designed to help the world’s poorest countries have access to vaccines.
Many see the EU’s omission from the Western Balkan countries as a missed opportunity. “This is a small region in terms of population, which means that with a small investment in vaccines, the EU would have gained a lot in terms of soft power and influence in the region,” said Alba Cela, executive director of the Albanian Institute for International Studies. The fact that the EU has not done so “is allowing other actors to play a role,” she added.
Engjellushe Morina, a senior policy researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that this feeling of being left behind could have serious implications for the region’s security.
“Europe has really neglected the region for a long time and that makes it vulnerable to other external actors,” she said, “This is where Russia comes in. This is where China comes in. This is where Turkey comes in, and they filled in the empty in different aspects. “
China enters the scene
Faced with the possibility of a long wait, Serbia, the largest of the six countries in the Western Balkans, decided to solve the problem and looked for vaccines elsewhere. China and Russia were ready to intervene.
Most of them received the Chinese vaccine, although the government said it also received 90,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine and 40,950 of the Pfizer / BioNtech vaccine. The price that Serbia paid for the vaccines has not been released.
Adnan Cerimagic, a senior analyst at ESI, a policy and research institute, said that without the Chinese vaccine, Serbia would be in a similar position to the rest of the region. “All the success of the vaccination program depends on China and I think it worked for China too, using Serbia as a place where they can have an impact in Europe … media reports say that thanks to the Chinese vaccine, Serbia is doing better than Germany and many other countries, “he said.
Carragher said the deal has been a win-win situation. “There is definitely a clear benefit for Serbia, not only in terms of reputation, as the main vaccinator on the European continent, but also in the legitimacy of the government, which has been going back democratically,” she said. “But here, you know, whenever you’re first in Europe, it looks like you’re doing something good.”
China also has a lot to gain. “President Xi said his goal is to make this region the first region in the world to be fully covered by the Belt and Road initiative and, from this perspective, alliances like this can be leveraged for other diplomatic priorities,” said Carragher. The Belt and Road Initiative is China’s signature global infrastructure policy that seeks to create new trade corridors linking China to Asia, Africa and Europe.
“It’s also about the principle underlying the vaccine program, it’s what they’re also selling, legitimizing the lack of transparency and vaccines [being] widely deployed before it was actually declared safe, “added Carragher, pointing to the fact that Russia started its vaccination program before finalizing clinical trials, while China has not published its data in a peer-reviewed publication.
Vaccines are also not China’s first venture in the Western Balkans – in the past decade, it has invested heavily in Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, financing major infrastructure and resource projects, including highways in Bosnia and Herzegovina and mines and factories in Serbia. It also opened Confucius Institutes and university synology departments across the region.
Serbia’s launch was such a success that it allowed the government to get involved in its own regional vaccine diplomacy round.
Last week, it donated 4,688 of its Pfizer / BioNTech doses to North Macedonia, which is still waiting for any of the more than 100,000 doses it has secured through COVAX. The donation was presented as an important sign of cooperation, with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and the Prime Minister of North Macedonia, Zoran Zaev, participating in a handover ceremony at the border.
On Wednesday, Serbia announced it would donate 4,000 doses of the Russian vaccine to Montenegro, which is also awaiting further deliveries.
Donations are symbolic gestures. But in this historically volatile and vulnerable region, symbols like this matter.
Kosovo has ordered over 100,000 doses of the COVAX vaccine and expects deliveries from the EU as part of the € 70 million scheme.
The Serbian government also said it had donated some of its doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine to Republika Srpska – one of the two highly autonomous entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina. The vaccination of the first 1,000 health workers started there last week, according to the website of the Ministry of Health of Republika Srpska. The region also ordered 400,000 doses of the Russian vaccine. The government of the country’s Bosnian-Croatian body, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said it had ordered 800,000 doses through the EU scheme.
Separately, the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the governing body for the entire country, ordered 1.2 million doses through the COVAX program.
Albania has secured 500,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine through a direct contract with the company, although according to the government, less than 10,000 have so far been delivered – not enough to vaccinate the country’s 23,000 health workers. In addition to its agreement with Pfizer, Albania has also ordered around 1.1 million doses through COVAX, ensuring that it will have enough doses for its entire population.
‘The EU could have done more’
Although the EU has promised to help the region buy Covid-19 vaccines, there is still no indication of how this will work.
But from a strategic and security point of view, the region is crucial for the EU. It is geographically completely surrounded by EU member states, but remains vulnerable. Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia are all officially EU candidate countries, while Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are seen as potential future candidates.
Cela said that this proximity to the EU is the reason why it is not just about showing solidarity with the poorest neighbors. “Strategic vision is lacking. If this region wants to be integrated – and it is in fact already integrated into the EU, because we have freedom of movement and we have a lot of people traveling from place to place, in practical terms – it makes no sense for the EU not to supply vaccines to the region ”, he said, stressing that having low vaccination rates in neighboring countries would pose a risk to the EU.
“It is a very hot topic here now,” said Cela, noting that the overwhelming feeling in the region is that the European Union could have done more for the Western Balkans.