Eurosceptics cheer Britain's vaccine success - but most of Europe happy to wait

Matteo Salvini, head of the League party - Shutterstock
Matteo Salvini, head of the League party - Shutterstock

Britain’s decision to become the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19 has been applauded by leading Eurosceptics but decried by much of the continent as an exercise in Brexit propaganda.

The decision puts the UK ahead of the rest of Europe – the European Medicines Agency, which is in charge of approving coronavirus vaccines for the EU, will decide by December 29 whether to authorise the vaccine.

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, and Matteo Salvini, the leader of the hard-Right League party in Italy, were quick to cheer the British move, heralding it as a benefit of Britain’s looming exit from the EU.

"Everyone said Brexit would be the end of Britain. Are the British doing so badly?” Mr Orban said on public radio.

“This shows that those who leave and follow their own path, can find their own solutions, and can protect the health of their citizens earlier than those who stayed inside (EU). That is the reality.”

A staunch critic of Brussels, Mr Orban is in a battle with the EU over its €1.8 trillion budget, objecting to a new mechanism that would link EU funding to whether member nations respect the rule of law.

In September, he said the UK’s decision to leave the bloc was “brave” and demonstrated Britain’s greatness, while insisting it was not a route that Hungary would follow because its economy was too closely tied to the rest of the continent.

Matteo Salvini, a longtime Eurosceptic who was Italy’s deputy prime minister until his coalition collapsed last year, also cheered the UK’s decision and used it to score political points against Italy’s centre-Left government.

Matron May Parsons (R) talks to Heather Price (L) during training in the Covid-19 vaccination clinic at University Hospital in Coventry, prior to the NHS administering jabs to the most vulnerable early next week - AFP
Matron May Parsons (R) talks to Heather Price (L) during training in the Covid-19 vaccination clinic at University Hospital in Coventry, prior to the NHS administering jabs to the most vulnerable early next week - AFP

"Everyone told us that Britain’s exit from the EU would be its ruin, and yet they are starting to vaccinate next week, two months before us,” he told the Senate, the upper house of parliament.

“Either the Pfizer vaccine works only in London and not in Rome, or there is something that is not right."

But elsewhere in Europe, there was a sense that the British had jumped the gun and struck an unnecessarily jingoistic tone that had more to do with Brexit than public health.

The British government was accused of grandstanding and of failing to be a team player by announcing the approval of the vaccine before any other country.

“The governments of the 27 agreed to play in the same team for a common good – to obtain a vaccine for everyone, at the same time and at the same price,” said an editorial in La Repubblica, an Italian daily.

“But Boris Johnson needed to demonstrate that Brexit was the best decision for the British people.”

The British had opted for "triumphalism" and a "nationalist narrative", said La Stampa, a centrist newspaper, going so far as to say the celebratory tone evoked “the Normandy landings.”

Trumpeting the approval of the vaccine was a way of diverting attention from the government’s “disastrous handling of the pandemic in its initial phase,” the paper said in an editorial.

The Pfizer manufacturing plant in Puurs, Belgium - AP
The Pfizer manufacturing plant in Puurs, Belgium - AP

Britain had ignored the contribution of the German company BioNTech in the development of the vaccine, critics said.

There has been little support in Germany for the idea of the country following the UK's lead and expediting its approval of the vaccine.

Angela Merkel’s government insists it wants to wait for the EU, and few have voiced opposition.

One notable exception is Karl Lauterbach, a senior backbencher from Mrs Merkel’s coalition partners, the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD), who praised Britain for taking the initiative and called on Germany to approve the vaccine "in record time".

"We shouldn't waste any time there, even if other EU states are not ready yet," said Mr Lauterbach, a health expert who has previously called for tougher lockdown measures in Germany.

On Friday, Klaus Reinhardt, the president of the German Medical Association, joined calls for Germany to move more swiftly.

"It's astonishing that the EU authorities should need four weeks", he told Deutschlandfunk radio.

"The necessary numbers and data will all have been submitted with the application. It's only a question of verifying whether the data are valid. I have the impression that time is being wasted here."

Germany tends to be much warier of vaccines than the UK. The country has a vocal anti-vaccination movement and Jens Spahn, the health minister, has said one of the reasons Germany wants to wait for EU approval is in order not to lose public faith in the vaccine.

The British move was applauded by Viktor Orban of Hungary - AP
The British move was applauded by Viktor Orban of Hungary - AP

Mrs Merkel's government has already had to make the measles vaccine effectively compulsory after the high number of parents refusing it for their children resulted in a worrying rise in infections, and some experts estimate as many as half of all Germans could refuse the coronavirus vaccine if it is made voluntary, as the government currently insists it will be.

The British move was widely dismissed in Germany as a political stunt, both by commentators and the general public.

"British politicians were bursting with pride on Wednesday and pretended that the turbo approval was proof of the rightness of Brexit," said Spiegel magazine. "At any rate, Boris Johnson's quick start to vaccinations comes in handy, since it will distract from criticism of his crisis management and increasing loss of authority."

The German ambassador to Britain dismissed any suggestion that the approval of the vaccine was a British triumph, saying it had been “a great international effort.

Andreas Michaelis said the German company BioNTech had played a key role in developing the vaccine, which was a “European and transatlantic” victory rather than “a national story”.

When Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, claimed that Britain had approved the vaccine first because it had “the best regulators” and was “a much better country” than any other, it did not go down well with Brussels.

A spokesperson for the European Commission said: “We are of course absolutely convinced that the regulators in the UK are very good but we are definitely not in the game of comparing regulators across countries nor on commenting on claims as to who is better. This is not a football competition. We are talking about the life and the health of people.”

A senior EU diplomat told the BBC that "someone should remind Mr Williamson that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was created by a German company, founded by scientists of Turkish origin, in partnership with an American distributor, and is being manufactured in Belgium before being transported across France to reach the UK.”

In Spain, opinion was divided. An editorial in the right-wing daily newspaper ABC applauded the decision of Britain to start a vaccination programme.

“At least the UK yesterday announced a long-awaited measure which means that from next week they will start to vaccinate their citizens. The apparent guarantees of the vaccine and the express authorisation of Downing Street allow us all to at last dream that the end of this nightmare is a little closer.”

However, Cesar Hernández, head of the department of human medicines of the Spanish Medicines and Sanitary Products Agency, doubted the wisdom of the British decision.

“In a situation in which epidemiologically it does not seem that we are going to get worse, to advance vaccination by a week or two, there would have to be a very large potential benefit for the risk that is run.

“All drug decisions are based on that relationship. A very large risk can be accepted if you are going to have a profit that exceeds it. Similarly, with a very small benefit and no risk you can also take it, but with an uncertain benefit and with two weeks to a full authorisation, taking that risk does not seem very justified.”

A poll published on Friday found that 55% of Spaniards would prefer to wait to see the effects of the jab before agreeing to have it.  Spain plans to roll out the vaccine next year and have most of the population covered by next summer.