With the EU failing to reach its goal of vaccinating 80 percent of the over-80s in the first quarter of the year, Gianluigi Paragone claimed Italy would’ve performed better as an independent nation. Armed with its newfound independence due to Brexit, Mr Paragone insisted the EU is no longer suitable to run the rollout of 27 separate nations. In a bold attack against the bloc, the leader of the new Italexit party revealed the EU has failed its ultimate test as states see case levels rise.
Mr Paragone wrote: “While the UK is about to return to normal, the EU remains naked in the face of its failure.
“If Covid, and the management of the emergency and recovery, were to represent the definitive test to demonstrate to everyone that Europe is good for the Member States, the test has failed blatantly.
“As Alberto D’Argenio also says to Repubblica, the EU did not achieve any of the objectives set for the first quarter of the year.
“It can be deduced that without the EU, we would have probably done better by now.”
Such is the low number of vaccinations on the continent, even the World Health Organisation has warned the rollout is “unacceptably slow”.
The EU set a target to vaccine the majority of those aged over 80 by the end of the first quarter of this year but according to figures, just five countries have met the target.
Due to this, it remains uncertain whether the Commission will reach its second major target of vaccinating 70 percent of the adult population by the end of the summer.
In contrast, the UK has administered a first dose of the vaccine to 31,581,623 people across the country as the Government proceeds with step two of its lockdown exit strategy.
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“Let me be clear, we need to speed up the process by increasing production, reducing the obstacles to vaccine administration and using every single vial we have in stock now.”
Indeed, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the majority of EU states are recording vaccine rates per 100 people below 30.
In contrast, the UK is registering 54.52 vaccine doses per 100 as Britain continues to surge ahead of the EU.
In terms of vaccine doses administered out of those which EU states have received, many EU states are registering figures below 90 percent of what has been given to them.
In worrying figures, the Netherlands is only using 65.7 percent of all vaccine doses it has – the lowest in the bloc.
The EU pledged to ramp up its rollout of vaccines as the issues surrounding the AstraZeneca drug are resolved.
Such were the issues surrounding the vaccine, the EU had threatened to block the export of the drug out of the continent.
Additional reporting by Maria Ortega.