Orban’s Hungary opens the doors to the Russian vaccine

The global race for the Covid vaccine is also a question of geopolitics and international balance. The umpteenth demonstration comes from Viktor Orban’s Hungary, one of the countries closest to the Kremlin among those of the European Union. Budapest is considering purchasing and manufacturing the Russian experimental Sputnik V vaccine despite it not yet being studied and approved by the European Medicines Agency. Yet another challenge to the EU by the Hungarian nationalist government, which does not want to subordinate the disbursement of European funds to respect for the rule of law and, together with Poland, has effectively blocked the approval of the EU budget and the Recovery Fund .

Budapest considers producing the Russian vaccine
The Russian airline Aeroflot has already sent ten doses of the Russian Covid vaccine Sputnik V to Budapest, the same that Putin announced in August as the first in the world against the new coronavirus despite not having completed all the necessary tests yet. Now Sputnik V is in the third and final phase of clinical trials and Moscow ensures that its effectiveness is around 95%. “We are the first European country to receive these samples,” said Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto in a video of a plane landing in Budapest. The ten doses will be used for testing and, according to the Hungarian authorities, if the vaccine proves safe and effective next year, large-scale supplies and mass production by a local company will be possible.

Orban’s government appears to be serious, and yesterday, in a joint press conference in Budapest with Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko, the head of Hungarian diplomacy Szijjarto said that Hungarian scientists will soon go to Russia to analyze the production of the vaccine. and study laboratory tests. “We remain in close contact with the Russian government and once the clinical trials are finished and the Hungarian health experts have made their decision, we will be able to talk about specific quantities,” said Szijjarto, quoted by Reuters.

Orban challenges the European Union and winks at the Kremlin
The Hungarian authorities state that they have already secured over 12 million doses of the vaccines that European and American pharmaceutical companies are developing (about 10 million people live in Hungary) and that they are also in talks with China and Israel for possible supplies of other vaccines. But Orban’s idea of ​​producing the Russian vaccine in Hungary for some analysts is a slap in the face in Brussels because it seems to actually want to circumvent the controls of the European Medicines Agency: the body that according to EU rules should eventually authorize the introduction of the Sputnik V into the European market.

Many observers believe that politics is primarily behind the Budapest move. Despite being a member of the EU and NATO, Hungary in recent years has forged strong ties with the Kremlin and Viktor Orban has repeatedly spoken out against the sanctions on Russia for the Ukrainian crisis. Budapest relies on Moscow for most of its gas needs but also for the construction of two new reactors in the Paks nuclear power plant with Russian funding of 10 billion euros.

Asked by the France-Presse agency, the spokesman for the “Reszasz” medical union, Tamas Denes, underlines how it is “difficult not to see politics” in this affair, but at the same time admits that «rejecting Sputnik V only because in Russia it’s not even a good idea. ‘ According to the health expert of the opposition New World party, Gabriella Santos, “it is possible that” Sputnik V “is safe and effective, but the question more than the virus or the vaccine concerns the government propaganda, which tells us that when we are in trouble, the Russians are the friends who help us first ».

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