During his three-day tour in the Western Balkans, EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi brought the first doses of anti-COVID vaccines, an EU donation. The EU will distribute 651,000 Pfizer-BioNtech vaccines to Bosnia, Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia, which will be distributed by August.

Varhelyi during his visits showed that the EU is on the side of the region in meeting the challenges caused by the pandemic.
“Vaccine sharing confirms our continued commitment to providing support, as we have done since the pandemic broke out,” Varhelyi said.

Varhelyi kicked off the tour in Belgrade on Monday, the country that will receive the smallest amount of vaccines due to the country’s high level of immunity, and again thanked Serbia for its assistance to neighboring countries in its population immunization campaign. 

After Serbia, on Tuesday Varhelyi stopped in Sarajevo where he declared that “it was a big day for Bosnia and Herzegovina”, which will be given 200 thousand vaccines “for the immunization of frontline health workers”, as he expresses.

Yesterday, Varhelyi stopped in Podgorica, Montenegro, where he stated that the European Union is considering ways to help the country cope with the $ 1 billion loan borrowed from China for the construction of a highway. Montenegro will receive 42,000 Pfizer vaccines from the EU by August, having previously received 200,000 doses of Sinopharm from China.

On Tuesday, the European Commissioner closed with a visit to Skopje with the delivery of a quantity of 4,680 vaccines, the first amount of the European donation. Together with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and Austrian Minister for Europe Karoline Edstadler, they visited the largest vaccination center. A total of 119,000 vaccines will be provided to North Macedonia. Varhelyi stated that with the help of the EU and the vaccines provided by them he hoped that the vaccination of all health personnel would be achieved very soon. During his stay in Skopje, the European Commissioner also attached importance to the EU integration process of North Macedonia and Albania, where he reiterated that the EU and he would not prefer the two countries to split and move forward on the path of integration.

Today, the commissioner initially stopped in Tirana, where he met with Prime Minister Edi Rama and opposition leader Lulzim Basha. The next stop of Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi will be Prishtina.

The Western Balkan countries have relied heavily on the World Health Organization’s COVAX program, but vaccines from this program are being delayed. Meanwhile, the EU, which will supply these countries with Pfizer vaccines by August, is also the main contributor to the 2.5 billion-euro COVAX program.

/Klara Ruci/