By Francesco Guarascio, John Chalmers and Emilio Parodi
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union has publicly dismissed Russia’s global coronavirus vaccine supply campaign as a propaganda stunt by an unwanted regime.
Behind the scenes, the bloc is turning to Moscow’s Sputnik V shot as it tries to get its faltering efforts to vaccinate its 450 million people back on track, EU diplomatic and official sources told Reuters.
An EU official negotiating with vaccine manufacturers on behalf of the bloc told Reuters that EU governments were considering starting talks with Sputnik V developers and that it would take requests from four EU states to begin the process.
Hungary and Slovakia have already bought the Russian shot, the Czech Republic is interested in it, and EU officials said Italy is considering using the country’s largest vaccine-producing bioreactor at a ReiThera plant near Rome to make Sputnik V. .
Brussels has been criticized for the slow introduction of the vaccine into the bloc at a time when the former member of Britain eased restrictions as the vaccination program accelerated. Italy is tightening closures, hospitals in the Paris region are almost overloaded and Germany has warned of a third wave.
The EU has negotiated with six Western vaccine makers and negotiated with two more. It has so far approved four vaccines, but production problems have delayed the vaccination campaign and some member states are seeking their own solutions.
If Sputnik V were to join the EU’s vaccine arsenal, it would be a diplomatic triumph for Russia, whose trade with the bloc has been hampered for years by sanctions over its annexation of Crimea and its intervention in eastern Ukraine.
It would also divide the risk of dividing the bloc between the states that are dead and do not give Moscow any victory, and those who are in favor of showing that Brussels can cooperate with the Kremlin.
‘Less desirable’
A second EU official said the ReiThera plant was mentioned at a meeting by Italian officials as a possible site for the production of COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by companies other than the Italian biotech company.
ReiThera, which owns 30% of the state and is developing its own COVID-19 shot, declined to comment.
A spokesman for the Italian Ministry of Industry declined to comment on talks over the possible use of ReiThera’s plant to make Sputnik V. She said: ‘We will produce all authorized vaccines where possible. ‘
A spokesman for the European Commission, which coordinates talks with vaccine manufacturers, said the EU was not obliged to launch talks with Sputnik V developers, even if the block’s drug regulator approved the vaccine.
It was not clear whether states that ordered Sputnik V in bilateral transactions would be interested in joint EU purchases. Spokesmen for the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia did not respond to requests for comment.
Negotiations with vaccine makers usually took months before an agreement was reached on the offer, and EU officials said no decision had yet been made on whether to approach the developers of Sputnik V after internal discussions about it.
Yet the discussions among EU governments show a remarkable change with regard to the Russian vaccine.
The EU has for months expressed doubts about Sputnik V, citing a lack of data and the labeling of the vaccine as a Kremlin propaganda tool.
On February 17, Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, questioned the reasons for exporting millions of doses from Russia despite a slow rollout at home, where fewer people were vaccinated proportionally than in the EU, based on public data.
Even last week, Charles Michel, who is chairing the summit of EU leaders, once again questioned Russia’s motives for promoting Sputnik V.
“We should not be misled by China and Russia, both regimes with less desirable values than ours, because they organize very limited but widely publicized operations to deliver vaccines to others,” he said. “Europe will not use vaccines for propaganda purposes.”
There were no official reactions from Moscow and Beijing to Michel’s comments, although Russia had earlier accused the EU of politicizing the issue of COVID-19 vaccines.
DRAGHI FACTOR
However, the story about Sputnik within the EU has already started to move after peer-reviewed trial data published on 2 February showed that it was 92% effective, higher than the Oxford University / AstraZeneca shot and close to the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines and Modern. .
There was a new twist on February 25, when Mario Draghi made his debut at an EU summit as the new Prime Minister of Italy.
The former head of the European Central Bank, highly regarded in Brussels for rescuing the euro from its worst crisis years ago, has taken a confident stance on vaccines to accelerate vaccination and production in Europe.
He told fellow leaders that the EU should buy more doses, including from outside the bloc, and expand vaccine production.
Italy, which traditionally supports a softer stance on Moscow, is now urging EU governments to consider Sputnik V. At a meeting of EU diplomats last Wednesday, the Italian representative called on the EU to increase its supply of vaccines, including the Russian shot, an official who attended the meeting said.
A spokesman for the Italian representation at the EU declined to comment.
Asked about Sputnik V, Italy’s health minister said earlier in March: “If a vaccine works and the regulators tell us it’s safe, nationality is of little importance to me. Italy is ready to deal with to cooperate with the Russian Government “.
Italy’s revelations follow the appointment of Draghi to a government backed by the right – wing league party and Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia, both of whom have long called for EU sanctions against Moscow to be phased out.
However, EU officials said doses were now urgently needed and that Sputnik V could be too late to be useful to the bloc, if delivery of the 1.3 billion shots it had already ordered was expected to accelerate later this year.
‘IT’S RUSSK IT’S BAD’
Any reluctance of the EU to launch talks with Sputnik V developers could be further weakened if the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approves the vaccine and if member states agree to shoot the plants in their areas.
On 4 March, the EMA launched an ongoing review of Sputnik V, the first step in a process that could lead to its approval across the EU. An EU official familiar with the process said a decision on possible authorization could come as early as May.
On the production front, the Russian RDIF Sovereign Wealth Fund last week signed an agreement with Swiss pharmaceutical company Adienne to manufacture small quantities of Sputnik V in Italy, although Rome was not involved in the arrangement.
But if Rome agrees to an agreement with ReiThera, it is the most important endorsement of Sputnik V to date. Eclipse agreements that Moscow has concluded with other countries, including Brazil, Argentina and India.
Berlin was also interested in producing Sputnik V in Germany, while RDIF said it was discussing production agreements with several EU countries.
RDIF declined to comment on specific transactions with companies to manufacture Sputnik V within the EU, or on any possible change of position by the bloc towards the vaccine.
Back in Brussels, one EU diplomat said that if the EMA approved Sputnik V, the bloc would probably split between the members in favor of cooperation with Russia and those against it.
The ties between Russia and the West, which were already at lows after the Cold War, have recently come under renewed pressure over the treatment of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, whose imprisonment prompted Brussels and Washington to impose sanctions on Moscow.
“We will fall into the usual chasm: ‘it’s Russian, it’s bad’ versus ‘well, come on, we have to work with the people,'” the diplomat said.
“There are some who do not want to give this propaganda victory to Russia, and there are others who will see it as an opportunity to show that we are working together.”
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio and John Chalmers in Brussels, Emilio Parodi in Milan and Polina Nikolskaya in Moscow; Additional reporting by Giselda Vagnoni and Giuseppe Fonte in Rome; Edited by David Clarke)