Berlin has been bounced into accepting Sputnik

Munich has had enough of the vaccine chaos in Berlin and Brussels. In a surprise announcement on Wednesday, Bavaria’s minister president Markus Söder stated that he would sign a preliminary purchase agreement for the Russian Sputnik vaccine.

The leader of the Bavarian Free State explained that he would pre-order two and a half million doses of Sputnik V in the hope of receiving these by July. Söder, who is a potential candidate to replace Merkel, was keen to stress that this was dependent on regulatory approval by the European Medicines Agency.

Under pressure to respond to Bavaria’s initiative, Germany’s health minister Jens Spahn has now told his EU counterparts that his country will make bilateral agreements to procure the Russian vaccine despite the fact that there are currently no EU plans to pre-order Sputnik. The implications for Germany’s relationship with Brussels may be far-reaching. Cracks have already begun to open since Merkel’s announcement not to stand in the 2021 election.