Austria and Denmark plan vaccines with Israel to bolster slow EU supply

Austria and Denmark, chafing at the slow rollout of COVID-19 vaccines within the European Union, have joined forces with Israel to produce second-generation vaccines against mutations of the coronavirus.

The move by the two EU member states comes amid rising anger over delays in ordering, approving and distributing vaccines that have left the 27-member bloc trailing far behind Israel’s world-beating vaccination campaign.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said it was right that the EU procures vaccines for its member states but the European Medicines Agency (EMA) had been too slow to approve them and lambasted pharmaceutical companies’ supply bottlenecks.

“We must therefore prepare for further mutations and should no longer be dependent only on the EU for the production of second-generation vaccines,”

the conservative chancellor said in a statement on Tuesday.

Danish Prime Minister Danish Mette Frederiksen was also critical of the EU’s vaccine programme.

“I don’t think it can stand alone, because we need to increase capacity. That is why we are now fortunate to start a partnership with Israel,”

she told reporters on Monday.

When asked whether Denmark and Austria wanted to take unilateral action in obtaining vaccines, Frederiksen said: “You can call it that.”

The European Commission said member states were free to strike separate deals should they wish to. “It’s not that the strategy unravelled or it goes against the strategy, not at all,”

spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker said.

An EMA spokeswoman did not have an immediate comment.

FIRST MOVERS?

Kurz and Frederiksen are due to travel to Israel this week to see Israel’s rapid vaccine roll-out up close.

Israel, which was quick to sign contracts for and to approve vaccines from U.S. drug makers Pfizer and Moderna, has given 94 doses per 100 people and the EU just seven, according to monitoring by Our World in Data.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made the campaign a showcase of his bid for re-election on March 23, has spoken of “an international corporation for manufacturing vaccines”.