BERLIN (Reuters) – German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Saturday he was furious that more COVID-19 vaccines were not ordered last year when EU Chief Executive Ursula von der Leyen renewed his defense of record of the European Commission in implementing them.
EU countries have so far given the first doses to just under 4% of their populations, compared with 11% for the United States and almost 17% for Britain, according to Our World in Data. Von der Leyen has been criticized for the slow implementation of the EU.
“I am angry at some of the decisions that were made last year,” Scholz told BBC Radio Today. “I think there was an opportunity to order more vaccines.”
Asked about von der Leyen’s responsibility for the slow launch, Scholz, speaking in English, replied: “I think it is necessary for everyone to learn their lesson, and this is also (true) for Europe. I think the European Union is strong . “
Scholz, a Social Democrat, and von der Leyen, a Christian Democrat, served together in Germany’s governing coalition until 2019, when she resigned to take over as President of the European Commission.
In an opinion article published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on Sunday, von der Leyen said it was misleading to say that sealing previous vaccine contracts would have accelerated his delivery.
“The bottleneck is elsewhere. Producing a new vaccine is an incredibly complex business, ”she wrote, adding that“ among the hundreds of required components, important ingredients are scarce worldwide. ”
Describing the fight against the virus as “not a sprint, it is a marathon”, von der Leyen added that “mutations concern us”.
“We need to prepare today for a scenario in which the virus can no longer be suppressed enough with current vaccines,” she said.
(Written by Paul Carrel; Editing by Nick Macfie)