"We need a wide range of different vaccines to make progress against coronavirus," said Emer Cooke, head of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), last Tuesday. Currently, there are four vaccines authorised in Europe, those of Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Janssen, but, as Cooke explained, the EMA is analysing other solutions in development such as Novavax or the Russian Sputnik V, given the need to accelerate the pace of vaccination and the problems with AstraZeneca. Regarding Sputnik V, which comes with a significant political and geopolitical burden, the EMA is already planning the visits of its experts to Russian plants and laboratories, part of the analysis process while waiting for Sputnik V to officially apply for authorisation by the EMA, something that has not yet occurred.

When last August the Kremlin presented to the world the success of Sputnik V, the Russian vaccine against covid-19, one could already sense that it would soon become geopolitical candy for Vladimir Putin. Now, in the midst of a climate of tension between the European Union and Russia, Moscow wants to fully enter the European vaccine market and take advantage of the concern that many member states are experiencing over the unexpected slowness of the vaccination process coordinated from Brussels. After seeing how last week the European Medicines Agency (EMA) began the process to study the Russian doses, the Kremlin is pushing to start manufacturing them directly from Europe. This Tuesday, Moscow has assured that they have reached an agreement with production facilities in Italy, Germany, France and also in Spain to produce the Sputnik V. Kirill Dmitriev, director of the sovereign wealth fund RDIF, which financed the research of the vaccine, explained it, without giving many details and in declarations to the state channel Rossiya 24.

Slowly, the European Union is beginning to show signs that it is reacting to the doubts caused by its vaccination campaign, which is noticeably slower than that of Great Britain or the United States, to give just two examples, due to the limited availability of doses. On Thursday, Italy refused to allow AstraZeneca to export to Australia 250,000 doses of its vaccine manufactured near Rome. This is an unprecedented decision, taken with the support of the European Commission, which has already approved legal cover so that countries can take measures to prevent vaccines manufactured in the EU from being shipped away by companies that have signed commitments with Brussels. This is, let's remember, the case of AstraZeneca, which has already breached agreements to deliver doses to the EU on several occasions.