The nursing team waits for the vaccine for COVID 19 by AstraZeneca at the CUS Turin University Sports Center on March 14, 2021 in Torino, Italy.
Stefano Guidi | Getty Images News | Getty Images
LONDON – Six members of the European Union raised concerns about how the bloc is distributing Covid-19 vaccines after AstraZeneca lowered its delivery targets once again.
Austria, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia wrote to the European Commission on Saturday to complain that the jabs are not being delivered on a proportional basis among the 27 countries that make up the European Union.
“If that system continued, it would continue to create and exacerbate huge disparities between member states this summer,” wrote the heads of state 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 have introduced flexibility in the system so that they can choose more than one 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 Member States’ decision to introduce this flexibility.
“Under this system, if a Member State decides not to adopt its pro rata allocation, doses are redistributed among the other interested Member States, “the commission said in a statement.
According to media reports, Bulgaria, for example, chose to receive fewer injections from Pfizer and BioNTech, the most expensive vaccine, 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 of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines.
The Bulgarian government was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC on Monday.
If we had not had the commission to do this work on behalf of the European Union, the competition and the questions that you opened this interview with would have been greater.
Paschal Donohoe
President of the Eurogroup
Bulgaria and other signatories are among the EU nations with the lowest number of vaccines received so far, according to data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
They are concerned that, without any change, some EU countries “will be able to achieve collective immunity in a few weeks, while others will be left behind,” they said in their letter.
Their complaint follows news that AstraZeneca will not meet its delivery goals 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 an additional 70 million doses during the second quarter.
These numbers are below what the bloc expected to receive.
“Why did they come up with this now, knowing that Austria is a member of the board, like the other 26 member states, and was informed of previous allocations like the others,” said a European official, who declined to be quoted because of the delicacy of the issue, he told CNBC on Sunday.
This comment suggests that the six countries could have dealt with the issue internally, instead of writing a letter and making it public.
Pascal Donohoe, Ireland’s finance minister, told CNBC on Monday that had it not been for the work of the European Commission overseeing the distribution of vaccines, the problems “would have been greater”.
It is expected to be discussed at the next European Summit, later this month.