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The Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has denounced the unequal distribution of corona vaccines in the EU.
In an EU health committee, there may have been side agreements between individual member states and pharmaceutical companies, Kurz said at a press conference in Vienna on Friday.
The ÖVP politician spoke of indications that there had been a "bazaar" on vaccines in the body.
According to Kurz, some EU states receive more vaccine doses per inhabitant than others. The side agreements have resulted in an imbalance in the distribution of vaccine quantities in Europe.
Contrary to what the EU heads of state and government decided, the deliveries were no longer made according to the population key, criticized the conservative politician.
As an example, Kurz cited Malta, which will receive around three times as many vaccine doses as Bulgaria by summer in relation to the population.
In relation to the population, the Netherlands would receive more doses than Germany and twice as many as Croatia by the end of June.
Austria is in the middle of the field.
Many member states were surprised by the unequal distribution, said Kurz.
He called for more transparency about the non-public contracts of individual EU member states with pharmaceutical companies.
It must be found out who signed the contracts, said Kurz.
A spokesman for the EU Commission defended certain deviations from the originally defined population key.
Member States could decide whether to require more or less amounts of a particular vaccine, said Commission spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker.
All EU member states will then be consulted about this.
In this context, a new distribution key is then also possible.