EU must prepare to vaccinate against new variant: Angela Merkel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that the European Union must prepare for vaccinations for new coronavirus variants in the coming years after EU leaders discussed ways to fight new variants of the virus, intensify vaccinations and the European tourism industry to save another devastating summer.

The 27 EU leaders on Thursday agreed to keep ‘strict restrictions’ on public life and free movement in place, while blocking the emergence of new variant speeds that could hamper an economic rebound.

“We need to prepare for a situation where we have to vaccinate constantly for a longer period of time, perhaps over years, due to new coronavirus variants, similar to the situation we know from the flu,” Merkel said.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the EU would “have to live with this virus” in the long run.

The new Prime Minister of Italy, the former head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, has called on the EU to adopt a much stricter stance towards pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the vaccines after a faltering start with the delivery of samples.

The European Commission executive told the meeting of virtual leaders that 51.5 million doses of vaccine have been delivered to the EU so far and 29.17 million have been administered, while about 5 percent of citizens have had their first dose.

The Commission and EU countries came under fire for erroneous mistakes in their joint vaccination program and a faltering roll of shots that left Israel badly behind, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The chairman of the summit, Charles Michel, said the bloc wanted “more predictability and transparency” from pharmaceutical companies that could not deliver the contracted vaccine volumes, setting the EU’s target of 70 percent of its adult population by mid to late Vaccinate 2021, endanger.

Not far from where the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, was the President of the Video Summit from Brussels, the EU legislators grilled the heads of the major pharmaceutical companies.

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot has raised many questions in the European Parliament, especially after confirming that the company will supply less than half of the vaccines it committed in the first quarter.

According to Berlin, Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane report from Berlin said lawmakers were not happy with Soriot’s answers.

“He has been repeatedly asked by several different MPs, hostile questions about how certain elements of the vaccine his company produces can be produced in the EU and made available in the UK, but not the other way around,” Kane said. said.

‘His answers were not particularly forthcoming, at least not to the satisfaction of Members of the European Parliament. What it is doing is reinforcing the question that there is currently, not only in Germany but also across the EU, the speed with which vaccines are being administered. And also the question of whether the speed can accelerate, can more people be vaccinated faster than is currently happening? ”

After the pandemic killed more than 900,000 people in Europe and drove them into the worst recession ever, EU leaders agreed to advance work on vaccine certificates, which southern countries hope will unlock tourism during the European summer.

But others, including France and Germany, are skeptical. Merkel said technical work on it should be completed by the summer.

As the EU draws a fine line between restrictions to stop the spread of infections and to keep borders open to ensure the smooth flow of goods and services across the internal market, Merkel said she did not expect stricter border restrictions on the French Moselle region to set up for now.

Although infection rates are declining in around 20 EU countries, there are concerns about fresh nails as the coronavirus variant first detected in the UK is spreading rapidly.

The head of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said that the British variant was present in 26 of the EU’s 27 countries, the South African variant in 14 and Brazilian in seven countries.

‘There’s an increasing COVID fatigue among our citizens … But we must not disappoint now. “The situation not only remains serious in many parts of Europe, but we must also pay attention to the new variants that are spreading,” she said.