Angela Merkel defended the decision of EU countries to allow the European Commission to procure coronavirus vaccines for the entire bloc. In response to growing domestic criticism, she said the move was “correct and important.”
During a press conference Tuesday where she also announced an extension of Germany’s national lockdown and a tightening of restrictions agreed with regional state leaders, the German chancellor said the joint European vaccine purchase was also in Germany’s interest.
“We have once again made it explicitly clear that the German government and the federal states welcome the fact that there is a joint European Union vaccine order, and that the goal of securing the vaccine jointly for all 27 countries of the EU is a correct and important goal,” Merkel said.
“This is also a goal that is in Germany’s interest, because we are surrounded by many member states of the European Union, we work in a free internal market, we work in a Schengen area in which free movement is possible.”
She added: “A high number of vaccinated people in Germany combined with many who are not vaccinated in our neighborhood would not be to Germany’s benefit. And that’s why we don’t want to do national solo-runs, but we believe that the most effective health protection for us can be achieved through a common European approach.”
Merkel’s defense follows growing criticism in Germany about the decision to put Brussels in charge of vaccine procurement and the European Commission’s subsequent handling of these purchases. On Sunday, Bavarian state premier Markus Söder blasted the EU’s purchasing procedure as “inadequate” and suggested that it “probably” went “too bureaucratically.”
Merkel insisted the Commission had “put a lot of effort into this” and underscored that “of course … the Commission can only negotiate what the member states want.”
The chancellor said that given the expected approval of further vaccines by the European Medicines Agency in the coming weeks and months, there was “a prospect that in the second quarter, we will have many more vaccines at our disposal than in the first quarter.”
She added that there was “a justified hope” that a BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine factory in Marburg, Germany, would be operational by the end of February or in March, which would further increase production capacities.