'Double Standards From Berlin' Criticised By Hungarian Justice Minister
- 24 Apr 2021 8:23 AM
Justice Minister Judit Varga slammed “hypocritical Western double standards” on Facebook on Thursday.
Varga said in her English-language post entitled “Double standards from Berlin” that during a panel discussion on Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and leader of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, had criticised countries that had authorised Eastern vaccines.
She said these countries had done so due to the “slow and obscure verification process of the European Medicines Agency”.
Even if we ignore the fact that these vaccines, which have been tested by the best Hungarian experts, are just as effective and safe as their Western counterparts, we must still not forget that in March, Mrs. Merkel herself said that if there will be no EU-level procurement of Sputnik vaccine, Germany “will have to take the path alone.”
“What’s going on? Hungary cannot take its own path, only Germany?”
Varga also said that “the really big twist in the story is that today, CDU-member Saxon Minister President Michael Kretschmer paid a visit to Russia and announced that Germany plans to buy 30 million doses of Sputnik V vaccine this summer.”
At the same time, more than a third of the Hungarian population has received at least the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, which would not have been possible “if we had waited for Brussels”, she said.
“The Hungarian vaccine procurement’s success is confirmed by the fact that more and more Member States, including Germany, are opening up to vaccines produced on the Eastern side of the world,” she added.
MTI Photo: Tibor Rosta
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