8 Feb 2021
Ursula von der Leyen has claimed that vaccine development is being treated like a Soviet-era “space race” fueled by confrontational mindsets.
The president of the EU’s powerful executive arm, the European Commission, told students during a webinar organised by Warwick University on Sunday: “Some countries view the search for a vaccine as a race among world powers, like the race for space in the 1960s.”
“This is not a competition between Europeans, Russians, Chinese and Americans — this is too serious,” Mrs von der Leyen said, according to
The Times.
The Commission president has come under fire in recent weeks for overseeing the bloc’s vaccine programme failure. The EU27 has inoculated less than four per cent of its populations on average compared to the UK which has given the first dose to 18.4 per cent of Britons. The UK is fourth in the world behind Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the Seychelles — all of which have far smaller populations than Britain.