Katja Hoyer Katja Hoyer

Berlin has been bounced into accepting Sputnik

Bavarian leader Markus Söder (Photo by JOHN MACDOUGALL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Munich has had enough of the vaccine chaos in Berlin and Brussels. In a surprise announcement on Wednesday, Bavaria’s minister president Markus Söder stated that he would sign a preliminary purchase agreement for the Russian Sputnik vaccine.

The leader of the Bavarian Free State explained that he would pre-order two and a half million doses of Sputnik V in the hope of receiving these by July. Söder, who is a potential candidate to replace Merkel, was keen to stress that this was dependent on regulatory approval by the European Medicines Agency.

Under pressure to respond to Bavaria’s initiative, Germany’s health minister Jens Spahn has now told his EU counterparts that his country will make bilateral agreements to procure the Russian vaccine despite the fact that there are currently no EU plans to pre-order Sputnik. The implications for Germany’s relationship with Brussels may be far-reaching. Cracks have already begun to open since Merkel’s announcement not to stand in the 2021 election. If post-Merkel Germany is willing to put the national interest above EU policy, the integrity of the bloc would come under serious pressure

Söder is perfectly happy for the rest of the EU to know that he is putting his own people before blind obedience to Brussels

Meanwhile, European officials are planning to send an inspection team to Russia later this month to investigate the production of Sputnik and come to a final decision. But it is widely expected that Putin’s jabs will get the green light from Brussels as recent medical reports have confirmed a high degree of effectiveness. Nonetheless, national leaders have so far been reluctant to commit themselves to ordering the vaccine directly.

Having dropped his shock announcement, Söder wasn’t yet done. He had one more ace up his sleeve: not only would his state receive the jabs first, but it would also produce them in the Bavarian town of Illertissen.

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