Why the European Union Refuses to Buy the Russian Sputnik V Vaccine

Idafe Martin

02/15/2021 16:01

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 02/15/2021 4:23 PM

The European Commission

considers that it does not need to buy the Russian Sputnik V vaccine

.

European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said on Sunday in an interview with the German newspaper

Augsburger Allgemeine

that, according to her forecasts, the European Union will receive at least 700 million doses until the end of September, “more than enough to vaccinate 70 % of the population of the Union ”.

Kyriakides also estimates that by the end of June there will be 300 million doses, which could be more when the vaccines of the Belgian pharmaceutical company Jansen that Johnson & Johnson produces are added.

These calculations make, according to community sources explained this Monday,

that the European Union does not need to buy the Russian vaccine, Sputnik V

 and that the European Commission has already made the decision to discard its acquisition.

The same sources say that for now it is not even a political decision - Brussels has always believed that

the Russian vaccine is a vaccine but also a political weapon

of Russian President Vladimir Putin - because the Russians have not requested authorization from the European Agency of the Medicine.

Without that authorization - as long as one is not Viktor Orban's Hungary and cares little about European standards - there will be no Sputnik V in Europe.

The decision is not official and probably never will be so as not to close a door - especially since Germany

does not rule it out

- but the sources consulted take it for granted that it will not be bought.

A few weeks ago, when the European fight with the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical Astra Zeneca intensified due to delays in its production and possible contractual breaches by the company, several European capitals began to hint that the European Union could buy the Russian vaccine.

If politically it was a toxic decision, logistically it made sense

if Russia was capable of supplying tens of millions of doses or allowing European pharmaceutical companies to manufacture the vaccine.

German laboratories were studying this option because one of the requirements that the European Executive places on pharmaceutical companies is that they be able to produce their doses in European territory,

something that for now Russia is unable to do

because it does not have agreements with European pharmaceutical plants.

The setting began to be set.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that "vaccines do not have nationality", while French giants such as Sanofi or the Institut Pasteur have failed to devise their own vaccine.

During his tumultuous visit to Moscow, the High Representative for Foreign Policy of the European Union, Josep Borrell,

congratulated Moscow

for having devised a vaccine that according to the scientific journal

'The Lancet'

is more than 90% effective.

Borrell even said that Sputnik V was "a good for humanity."

Borrell did not discuss vaccines with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and community sources explained after the trip that it was only a courtesy compliment.

Brussels rules out the purchase but several governments do not see it so clearly.

Conservative Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz's Austrian Executive

said his government could buy Russian vaccines

if they were produced in Austria.

And the Czech government announced this weekend that it would be interested in receiving Russian vaccines.

PB

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