Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina are still awaiting receipt of their first vaccines, while rollout in Albania and northern Macedonia has so far been limited to a few hundred people.
The countries of the Western Balkans are important allies and potential future members of the European Union, but they have been left out of plans for the immediate supply of vaccines.
The EU has secured more than 2.3 billion doses of different coronavirus vaccines and said it expects to share some of them with others. It has also set aside € 70 million ($ 85 million) for the Western Balkans region to purchase these doses in the future, but as its own implementation has been slow and delayed, the countries are still waiting.
And as relatively rich countries – at least in the global context – it is also not a top priority for programs designed to give the poorest countries in the world access to vaccines.
Many see the EU’s omission of countries in the Western Balkans as a missed opportunity. “It is a small region in terms of population, which means that with a small investment in vaccines, the EU would earn a lot in terms of soft power and influence in the region,” said Alba Cela, executive director of the Albanian Institute for International Studies. The fact that the EU has not done so is that ‘other players can play a role’, she added.
Engjellushe Morina, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that this feeling of backwardness could have serious consequences for the security of the region.
“Europe has really neglected the region for so long and it makes the region vulnerable to other external actors,” she said. “This is where Russia comes in. This is where China comes in. This is where Turkey comes in, and they have filled the gap in various aspects.”
China enters
Confronted with the possibility of a long wait, Serbia, the largest of the six countries in the Western Balkans, took matters into its own hands and sought vaccines elsewhere. China and Russia were ready to intervene.
Most of them received the Chinese vaccine, although the government said it also received 90,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, and 40,950 of the Pfizer / BioNtech vaccine. The price Serbia paid for the vaccines was not disclosed.
Adnan Cerimagic, senior analyst at ESI, a policy and research institute, said Serbia would be in a similar position to the rest of the region without the Chinese vaccine. “The whole success of the vaccination program rests with China and I think it also worked for China and used Serbia as a place where they could have an impact in Europe … according to the media, Serbia is doing better thanks to the Chinese vaccine than Germany and many other countries, ‘he said.
Carragher said the deal was a win-win situation. “There is definitely a clear advantage for Serbia, not only with a reputation, because it is the best vaccine on the continent of Europe, but also a legitimation of the government, which has deteriorated democratically,” she said. “But here, you know, when you’re first in Europe, you seem to be doing something good.”
China also has a lot to gain. “President Xi said it’s his goal to make this region the first region in the world to be fully covered by the Belt and Road initiative. From this perspective, alliances like these can be used for other diplomatic priorities,” Carragher said. said. The Belt and Road Initiative is China’s global infrastructure policy aimed at creating new trade routes connecting China with Asia, Africa and Europe.
“It’s also about the underlying principle behind the vaccination program, that’s what they also sell, which legitimizes a lack of transparency and vaccines. [being] deployed widely before being declared truly safe, “Carragher added, noting that Russia began its vaccination program before clinical trials were completed, while China did not publish its data in a peer-reviewed publication.
The vaccine is also not China’s first venture in the Western Balkans – over the past decade it has invested heavily in Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, financing major infrastructure and resource projects, including highways in Bosnia. and Herzegovina and mines and factories in Serbia. It also opened Confucius institutes and synology departments throughout the region.
The deployment of Serbia was such a success that it allowed the government to participate in its own round of regional diplomacy against vaccination.
Last week, it donated 4,688 of its doses of Pfizer / BioNTech to Northern Macedonia, still awaiting any of the more than 100,000 doses it has secured through COVAX. The donation was seen as an important sign of cooperation, with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and the Prime Minister of Northern Macedonia, Zoran Zaev, attending a handover ceremony at the border.
On Wednesday, Serbia announced that it would donate 4,000 doses of the Russian vaccine to Montenegro, which is also still waiting for its other deliveries.
The donations are a symbolic gesture. But in this historically volatile, vulnerable region, symbols like these are important.
Kosovo has ordered more than 100,000 doses of the vaccine from COVAX and expects deliveries from the EU as part of the € 70 million scheme.
The Serbian government has also said it has donated several doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine to Republika Srpska – one of the two highly autonomous entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the website of the Republika Srpska Ministry of Health, vaccination of the first 1,000 health workers there began last week. The region also ordered 400,000 doses of Russian vaccine. The government of the Bosnian-Croatian country, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said it had ordered 800,000 doses through the EU scheme.
Separately, the presidencies of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the body that governs the entire country, ordered 1.2 million doses through the COVAX program.
Albania has obtained 500,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine through a direct contract with the company, although according to the government, less than 10,000 have been delivered so far – not enough to vaccinate the country’s 23,000 health workers. In addition to the Pfizer agreement, Albania has also ordered about 1.1 million doses through COVAX, to ensure that it will have enough doses for its entire population.
‘The EU could have done more’
While the EU has promised to help the region buy Covid-19 vaccines, there is still no indication of how it will work.
But from a strategic and security point of view, the region is crucial for the EU. It is geographically entirely surrounded by EU member states, but remains vulnerable. Albania, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia and Serbia are officially candidate EU countries, while Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are considered as potential future candidates.
Cela said that it is close to the EU why it is not just about solidarity with poorer neighbors. “There is a lack of strategic vision. If this region is to be integrated – and it has already been integrated into the EU, because we have free movement and many people travel back and forth practically – it makes no sense for the EU not to vaccines to the region, “she said, stressing that low vaccination in neighboring countries would pose a risk to the EU.
“This is a very hot topic right now,” Cela said, noting that the overwhelming feeling in the region is that the European Union could have done more for the Western Balkans.