German media continues to criticise the European Union’s bureaucratic and slow handling of coronavirus vaccine procurement, with Bild hailing, by comparison, the “vaccination masters” Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and Benjamin Netanyahu.
The tabloid Bild, which has the highest circulation in Germany, published Friday an article praising the vaccination programmes of former U.S. President Donald Trump, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who last month took the UK out of the EU transition period, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Bild wrote:
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, this trio has been silently mocked and ridiculed by the [German] federal government and the EU Commission.
But when it came to vaccinations, they put Berlin and Brussels in the shade: The then U.S. President Donald Trump (74), British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (56), and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (71) have the most successful vaccination campaigns up and running in the Western World.
The fact is: As of January 26th, Israel had vaccinated 32 per cent of its citizens at least once against coronavirus. In Great Britain, it was at least 10.6 per cent, and in the USA, six per cent. By comparison: Germany has vaccinated two per cent and the entire EU was 1.9 per cent.
The newspaper went on to praise former President Trump for preparing for the vaccination programme since February 2020 and the speed with which his procurement project advanced.
“Instead of haggling over the price for months like the EU Commission did, Netanyahu bravely grabbed the state wallet,” the author also said of the Israeli leader.
“Brexit Boris laid the foundation for vaccination success” in March 2020 by bringing together Oxford University with AstraZeneca, the article said, and rather than “waiting for the junk EU Commission”, Johnson ordered 30 million doses from Pfizer-BioNTech on July 20th.
The article was published days after German newspaper Die Zeit published an opinion piece calling the European Commission’s handling of the bloc’s vaccination programme “the best advertisement for Brexit,” with the newly-independent UK able to exercise its right to manage its own inoculation procurement.
The UK was the first country in the West to approve a vaccine, by Pfizer-BioNTech, for use on December 2nd. The Johnson administration authorised the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot on December 30th. In contrast, the EU is expected to approve the latter some time on Friday — a month after the UK.
The European Commission, which is the EU’s powerful executive arm, has come to blows with the UK and AstraZeneca after the drugs firm’s CEO and other reports claimed that delays to European stock were due to the bloc’s bureaucracy slowing down the entire procurement and production process, which is estimated at some three months behind the UK.
Reports have suggested that a group of countries including the Netherlands had agreed its own deals with the drugs company in June, only to be instructed to halt negotiations by the Commission, which demanded to handle all vaccine procurement on behalf of the entire bloc.
CEO Pascal Soriot said the UK is on course to hit its vaccination targets, saying earlier this week: “By March, the UK will have vaccinated maybe 28 or 30 million people. The Prime Minister has a goal to vaccinate 15 million people by mid-February, and they’re already at 6.5 million. So they will get there.”