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Corona also affects the basic idea of the European Union, unity. At the beginning of the pandemic, barriers fell in the Union, and European politics sought salvation at the national level. While the deaths were taking place in northern Italy, Austria discussed the transfer of tanks to the Brenner pass, and in Germany people thought they were far away. It was terribly long weeks before the first French patients could be treated in Freiburg. Meanwhile, China was handing out masks and flags.
After the initial shock, health ministers promised to improve. They regulated cooperation in the distribution of a vaccine and negotiated contracts in this regard. That was not easy, because health policy is not part of the catalog of common tasks, even if the drugs are jointly approved for market economy reasons.
It is this fuzzy jurisdictional framework that almost led to another collision, this time with EU citizens. Because it is difficult to convey why a vaccine developed in Germany and sold in Belgium can be administered in Britain, the US, Canada, Bahrain or Israel, but not where it was invented and tested on test subjects.
The Mainz company Biontech submitted the application for approval of its vaccine to the US FDA and the European EMA at the same time. Both authorities work according to comparable standards, but the European system does not have an accelerated procedure, for a simple reason: the national approval authorities in Europe have not renounced their existence, therefore the coordination and reinsurance processes in Europe employ 27 additional actors.
The logic of the federal government followed the opposite principle: simply no vaccination nationalism
The US authorities do not have to take into account such subordinate sensitivities and can speed up the process. The British authorities opted for the same procedure because Brexit has catapulted the country out of the common regime and it was more than convenient for the Johnson administration to demonstrate its political independence by accelerating. In general, the message of swift approval touched the British soul on the same day that Johnson clashed with the British House of Lords and wanted to show the nation how pleasant the new freedom smells.
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The logic of the federal government followed the opposite principle: simply no vaccination nationalism, so as not to jeopardize cohesion in the EU. After Brenner’s experience in March, a swift German approval by the Paul Ehrlich Institute would have triggered a political catastrophe, and that at the time of greatest tension during the German Council Presidency with the delicate negotiations on the budget and aid from Crown. Other than that, lone national attempts on the continent could have led to uncontrollable vaccination tourism across borders and upset the well-balanced distribution network.
The fact that, under the pressure of events, the EU authority now grants approval for December 21, is ending the political vaccination disaster in Europe. But the general inventory and reform of the European health bureaucracy cannot be avoided.
