Coronavirus: Akel blasts EU’s vaccination programme

Akel on Friday blasted the EU’s coronavirus vaccination programme as a massive failure with serious repercussions on public health and the societies and economies of Europe.

In a strongly worded statement, the opposition party also took aim at European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, a Cypriot and former Disy vice president, for what it called an ‘evolving fiasco’.

The party’s announcement came hours after the Cyprus News Agency featured an article by Von der Leyen and Kyriakides defending the Commission’s handling of the vaccination issue and insisting that an EU-wide approach was the best policy.

The European Commission has come under increasing fire from within the bloc over the slow pace of its vaccination roll-out, attributed in part to production problems.

EU member states have relied on a joint procurement programme negotiated by the European Commission that has helped smaller nations benefit from the Union’s combined negotiating clout. But the EU has struggled to get supplies and has lagged behind countries such as the UK and Israel in vaccinating its population, seen as crucial to the easing of lockdown measures.

Akel said that the interests of big pharma, lack of transparency in the negotiations and the contents of the contracts signed by the Commission and prejudice as regards the vaccines manufactured by other states have added to the unforgivable incompetence of the Commission to manage the situation.

“The president of the Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the Commissioner responsible for health Stella Kyriakides have huge responsibilities over the evolving fiasco which leads to large delays, shortages and uncertainty as to the vaccination of EU citizens,” Akel said.

Von der Leyen will on Monday hold an online meeting with MEPS from the European Left who will demand accountability for this failure, Akel, which has two members in the group, added.

“In view of the above, the Cyprus government should not remain passive but make arrangements for alternative solutions so that vaccination of the citizens of Cyprus can proceed in a timely fashion, something that will allow us to leave the pandemic behind us for good,” the party concluded.

Earlier, in an article on CNA, the two EU officials said that the Commission was being criticised for being slow but queried whether they or a member state could have acted any faster, or whether signing a contract earlier was guarantee of speedier delivery of large quantities.

They said that all three manufacturers who have developed a successful vaccine have had to reduce their deliveries because of production problems or lack of the necessary raw materials.

Developing a vaccine usually takes ten years and this time it needed only ten months. The first Covid-19 vaccine was discovered in Europe and is mass produced in the EU, they said.

The pre-purchase agreements had included down payments to vaccine developers so that scale up production and produce vaccines immediately for the EU. The EU has invested €2.7 billion and expect European citizens to reap the benefits of this European investment.

The EU has secured 2.3 billion doses of these vaccines for its citizens and those of neighbouring countries.

“This is the right approach: to stay united in the fight against the virus and to work on a European level to deal with a virus that knows no borders,” they added.

They stressed that from the beginning they wanted all member states irrespective of their size, to have equal access to the vaccines and urged the public to consider what would have happened if only one or two member states had access, something that might have happened without the collective negotiating strength of the EU.

Cyprus had up to last week received 45,500 doses and 25,500 people have received the first or both the first and second jab. These numbers were not adequate, but they are not negligible, the EU officials said adding that EU member states will receive another 33 million doses in February and another 55 million in March. Another 300 million will be delivered in the second quarter.