EU Council President Michel said Tuesday that the EU values value and does not use vaccines as a propaganda tool, as China and Russia do, on the EU-wide push for vaccination against the new coronavirus.
Michel said we should not be tempted by China and Russia. The values of the Chinese and Russian polities are far less worthy of esteem than those of the EU. He said that China and Russia provide vaccines to other countries in a “very limited but highly publicized way”.
The EU Council president cautioned that we are patient but not blind when it comes to vaccines.
A major EU-wide vaccination campaign is now somewhat affected by delays in the arrival of vaccines, with individual member states turning to Russian satellite V and Chinese national vaccines that have not been approved by EU health agencies in the face of slow approval procedures.
The Czech Republic and Slovakia have also now ordered a certain amount of Russian Satellite V. The European Medicines Agency began reviewing Russian Satellite V last week and, if approved, will begin production in Italy in July.
AFP reports that China and Russia are engaged in “vaccine diplomacy”, providing new vaccine crowns to developing countries, up to the Balkan islands.
Brussels is wary, however, and the EU does not intend to include the Satellite V vaccine in the EU subscription package, as European Commission President von der Leyen questioned last week: Why is Russia providing millions of vaccines to other countries without sufficient vaccination in its own country?
Michel said that according to known data, Russia and China vaccinate more than twice as many people in their own countries than the EU, and it is clear that the EU does not use vaccines for propaganda purposes, the EU advocates value.
Michel expressed his anger at the criticism of the EU’s “nationalist vaccine policy” following the EU’s decision to implement a control mechanism for locally produced vaccines.
He said that facts speak louder than lies, and that the UK and the US have issued decrees banning the export of vaccines, while the EU has never banned the export of vaccines. He said, for example, that most of the vaccines administered in Israel come from Belgian manufacturers.
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