Photographer: Alex Kraus / Bloomberg
Photographer: Alex Kraus / Bloomberg
Angela Merkel is starting to give in under pressure from Germany’s faltering coronavirus vaccine program.
With the Chancellor under fire publicly for lack of Covid-19 shots and her strategy of delegating responsibility to the European Union looking misguided, she retorted when pressed by German state premieres during a closed-door meeting in early January.
Being more furious than those involved had ever seen, she threatened to retaliate and make public the errors of the officers, shocking the participants in silence. On other occasions, she has almost cried in public in recent weeks.
Angela Merkel arrives for a press conference on Covid-19 in Berlin on January 21.
Photographer: Michael Kappeler / POOL / AFP / Getty Images
“It breaks my heart when I see how many people died in nursing homes in solitude,” she said in a recent speech.
This emotion is highly unusual for the sober physicist, who has faced one crisis after another in his 15 years at the head of Europe’s largest economy. But as she prepares to hand over the chancellery after the September election, the pandemic appears to be running away from her. An opinion poll released last week confirms this. Only 11% of respondents thought Germany’s vaccine program is doing well, while 61% saw major deficiencies with the launch.
A reconstruction of events for this story, which is based on information from government officials who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations within the chancellery, shows that the vaccine’s stumbles in the country bear the hand of Merkel. Its European focus has sparked conflict within the German government, while having an overload European Commission hampered the launch. A government spokesman declined to comment on the internal deliberations.
The tension generated a high-risk power game in Brussels. The EU is assuming AstraZeneca Plc and other pharmaceutical companies, and imposition of export controls in an all-or-nothing response to perceived flaws.
The EU is lagging behind in the vaccine race
Cumulative doses administered by 100 people
Source: Data collected by Bloomberg
Germany’s effort started well. The Merkel government supported the development of vaccines at an early stage, advancing in other countries.
In April, Health Minister Jens Spahn – Merkel’s longtime opponent – contacted BioNTech SE and offered financial assistance. In September, the German start received 375 million euros ($ 450 million) in research funding, about three times its public quotation raised at the end of 2019. In June, Germany invested 300 million euros in another country start, CureVac NV, acquiring a stake and avoiding a Trump administration approach.
But, behind the scenes, a political struggle became infected.
Spahn had long been a thorn in the side for the chancellor. The ambitious 40-year-old conservative was an open critic of her refugee policy and was reluctantly offered a chair in her office in 2018. The coronavirus crisis offered him the chance to raise his profile, and he planned to take advantage of it.
Angela Merkel and Jens Spahn at the Bundestag on January 13.
Photographer: John MacDougall / AFP / Getty Images
During the first weeks of the pandemic, Spahn gave press conferences almost daily, until the chancellery told him to leave the limelight. In mid-March, Merkel placed the crisis under her wing, and Germany’s relatively moderate blockade contained the spread. The impression was that Merkel had saved the day again.
Satisfied with her success, she looked at Germany’s EU presidency in the second half of 2020. There were major issues to be tackled, such as difficult Brexit negotiations and the historic recovery fund.
But Spahn remained active. In June, he formed a vaccine alliance with France, Italy and the Netherlands. The goal was to guarantee as many doses as possible and, on June 13, the group signed a preliminary contract with AstraZeneca for 400 million kicks. What could have been good news set off the alarm in Berlin and Brussels.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen asked the chancellery to end Spahn’s alliance. Merkel’s former defense minister made it clear to the chancellor that Spahn’s effort could overshadow Germany’s EU presidency.
As a committed multilateralist, she did not want to be reminded to save Germans at the expense of the rest of the EU. Shortly thereafter, Spahn did apologize for the initiative.
“We think it makes sense if the commission takes the lead in this process,” said Spahn and his three colleagues in the letter – which leaked to the media in January as part of a pressure campaign against Merkel.
Visitors wait to receive doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination site in Wurzburg, Germany.
Photographer: Alex Kraus / Bloomberg
Meanwhile, the US was spending money as part of Operation Warp Speed. In May, the Trump administration promised as much as $ 1.2 billion in funding for the AstraZeneca vaccine project. In July, the US agreed to pay $ 1.95 billion for 100 million doses of the BioNTech vaccine, with an option to purchase another 500 million.
Almost simultaneously with the US agreement, the UK has also agreed to buy 30 million doses of BioNTech and its partner Pfizer Inc.
Read more: EU Flubbed Vaccine Get up Risks of another existential crisis
Few things were happening in Brussels. In July, the Commission rejected BioNTech’s offer of 500 million doses amid price fluctuations and concerns about super-cold storage for doses.
By the end of the summer, the chancellery was increasingly alarmed by the slow progress, and Merkel asked von der Leyen to speed things up. In late August, the Commission signed an agreement with AstraZeneca.
It was not until November 20 that an EU agreement with BioNTech was finalized, 11 days after the company announced that its vaccine candidate was more than 90% effective in clinical trials.
Even that was a struggle. Germany had to ensure that it would take up until 100 million doses and added 192 million euros to EU money for virus deals. But, as more studies emphasized the benefits of the injection, other member states lined up, and Germany’s distribution was reduced by more than half.
Meanwhile, a bilateral agreement that Spahn signed with BioNTech on September 8 for 30 million doses exclusively for Germany was mired in red tape.
Leading the group
Germany’s conservatives are ahead in the polls, but the gap is narrowing
Source: Infratest dimap
“The process in Europe certainly did not happen as quickly and directly as in other countries,” said BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin. Spiegel magazine, blaming the EU’s heavy bureaucracy and a careless approach. “Apparently, there was an attitude of: let’s have enough, it won’t be too bad, we have everything under control”.
While the EU acquisition process was choking, Merkel was busy presenting herself as an advocate for vaccine justice. In June, she announced that Germany would give 600 million euros to the Gavi Alliance, plus 100 million euros for developing countries.
The global approach makes sense from a scientific point of view and there is certainly still a long way to go that could allow Germany – even better than many other countries – to recover.
It was not until 20 November that an EU agreement with BioNTech was finalized.
Photographer: Alex Kraus / Bloomberg
But politically, he was making his allies squirm, especially as they were looking at the September elections. Bavarian state leader Markus Soeder – Leadership candidate to succeed her as chancellor – supported Merkel’s European course, but noticed: “It is also not wrong to worry about your own country.”
To ease tensions, Merkel will hold a vaccine summit in Germany on Monday, but the pressure remains palpable. When asked recently whether she would be willing to apologize for the mistakes she made, she went astray and instead responded with a lecture on the complex production process, including the role of saline.
“Of course we could have asked for more sooner,” said Spahn on Friday, refusing to point the finger publicly at Merkel or anyone else. “It is the virus that is our opponent, not the pharmaceutical industry and not each other.”
– With the help of Raymond Colitt and Hayley Warren