Many of the leading mainstream media, such as Germany’s Die Welt, report that EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is coming under increasing attack because of her evident failure in securing sufficient supplies of vaccines for the population of continental Europe. The difference between von der Leyen’s home state, Germany, with so far only 1.9% of the population having received vaccination, and the non-EU United Kingdom, which has already inoculated 8.9%, is striking.
Gabor Steingart, a leading blogger and podcaster in Germany, working also with the Handelsblatt Media Group, mocks von der Leyen’s ambitious EU reform plan, which she tried to sell as “Europe’s Man on the Moon Moment,” saying that what she has achieved looks more like the Apollo 13 disaster, which did not put astronauts on the Moon but got them into an emergency landing in the Pacific instead.
Much of the delay in the European vaccination campaign is owed to von der Leyen’s insistence on an all-EU approach instead of national governments taking action, and to the Commission having dragged on in talks with pharmaceutical producers last autumn to drive the price of the vaccines down, the Dutch news daily De Volkskrant reports. The cheap solution which von der Leyen is so proud of, is sparking mass discontent across Europe, this news daily and others are warning.
The national election in the Netherlands in March may show voters punishing the government parties for their failure in the anti-pandemic fight, with anti-EU radicals gaining votes, observers of the scene forecast.
