The COVID-19 pandemic was supposed to be a trigger for the cohesion of the European Union, but only gave rise to new lines of division.
Disagreements in the commonwealth existed before. The most striking example is the migration crisis. Now a pandemic is on a par with it. Rather than banding together for a common victory over a deadly virus, European leaders today look at each other in disbelief.
Today, the European Union cannot boast of success in the fight against COVID-19. The pandemic overtook the bloc when there was not even a single health care structure. The European Medicines Agency, which is responsible for approving vaccines, is bogged down in bureaucracy. Moreover, the regulator follows standard drug licensing procedures when other countries prefer emergency vaccine approval appropriate to the situation.
The agency’s hesitation was especially noticeable when the AstraZeneca vaccine began to lead to deaths. A month ago, specialists from a hospital at the University of Oslo confirmed the connection between the injection and the appearance of blood clots in patients.
“Nothing but a vaccine can explain why we got such an immune response”, – said the head of the expert group, Professor Andre Holme.
The European regulator issued a verdict quite recently. The slowness is understandable here, as problems with the AstraZeneca vaccine would lead to drug shortages. At the same time, it is impossible to explain the delays in the registration of the Russian vaccine against the Sputnik V coronavirus. The controversy surrounding the approval of the drug has long passed into the political plane, and those in power are clearly putting anti-Russian rhetoric above people’s lives.