Euronews Reporting: Diplomacy with vaccines in the Western Balkans

For many countries in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans dilemmas to get vaccines against COVID-19 has been compared to those that existed during the Cold War.

Governments in the area have been asked the questions: Which vaccine is best? What may soon be available? Do they risk damaging relations with the West if they ask Russia for vaccine doses?

Whatever I like about the Cold War is the deepest ideological consequences, because I think vaccine diplomacy has more value than vaccines”, Allison Carragher, researcher at Carnegie Europe, told Euronews.

The Western Balkans and countries of the former Yugoslavia view this election as a “impact of two value systems”, with Chinese and Russian vaccines on one side and Western vaccines on the other, broadcast Telegrafi.

The “has nothing to do with the soft power or good geopolitical will, but it has to do with what values are based on these vaccine programmes”, she added.

Some of the major issues these East countries have to consider are transparency, data exchange, private sector inclusion, and regulatory credibility, according to Carragher.

But now, there is a wider spectrum of key actors than there were during the Cold War, with several countries addressing China, points out Joana Hosa, deputy director of “Wender Europe Programmes” at the European Council for Foreign Relations.

She agrees that countries in the area clearly prefer vaccines from their political allies, but added that the efficiency of vaccines is also an important dimension.

Russian dilemma. Scientific evidence matters here.

Russia was first in a vaccine race against COVIED-19, claiming that it had recorded a vaccine in August 2020, but many scientists in the country and abroad questioned the decision to make it available for use before Face 3, which normally last several months and include thousands of people.

“That's how Western states responded to Russia,” explained Hosa, adding that this is why many countries “preferred Western vaccines at first... because scientific evidence matters here”.

But when some countries in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans found that Russians and Chinese vaccines were easier to obtain, they began to change their minds, she added.

In fact, even some European Union countries have requested Sputnik V to be approved by the bloc's drug regulator, with Hungary and Slovakia already receiving doses.

“Germanis also considered producing sputnik V vaccines, repeating that it is in everyone's interest to have as many people vaccinated in Europe and around Europe”, Hosa said, and on 9 March, the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce announced that the first would produce Sputnik V from July.
But no matter how terrible the need for vaccines, some former Soviet states have been unable to see past disputes with Moscow, surprisingly Ukraine.

“Ukraina would not like to be dependent on its enemy ʹ these countries are at war and the situation is so exciting and trust levels are so low, at least from Ukraine's side”, explained Hosa, saying Kyiv had gone as in terms of anti-Russian vaccine legislation so that only buying the shock is illegal.

There was a petition to go against the Russian vaccine “because it is seen as a threat to national security”, she added.

The Russian-Georgian war is also fresh in Georgian minds, according to the expert, “so their emotions are also very high”, which makes them more likely to be fattened for Chinese vaccines, or at least just a small percentage of the total taking of Sputnik V.

On the other side of the medal, Belarus has welcomed the Sputnik V vaccines with open arms, because “a actually have nothing to lose because they are not really looking for the EU or any other country, and President Aleksandar Lukashenko is betting on Russia”.

Donations between countries must be political

Geopolitical relations between the countries are also at stake when it comes to nations donating doses for those in need.

Serbia has been held as one of the world's leading vaccinators, with the government saying that providing the shocks was not a political issue.

President Aleksandar Vuciq recently told Euronews that the “certain vaccines coming from the East were even safer than the ones we received from the West”, adding “but all were excellent”.

However, dig a little deeper, and Carragher says the “should be <x1 political>.

Is he saving a life with vaccines? Yes, very likely and no one opposes it, but there are political implications. We live in a real political world, so you have to look at all the implications”, she said.

The expert in the Western Balkans says the Serbian president has given a <x0 medical class” in vaccine diplomacy, working with Europe, the US, China and Russia and using it politically as well.

He has donated vaccines within the region, especially for northern Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia, starting with the Serb majority side, but later both entities é, as well as sending vaccines for the Serb population in Kosovo.

“There is an ethnic component, there is a political component”, explained Carragher, “and Serbia's prime minister has linked these vaccine donations to the largest regional integration, which in turn is a very general statement, but Aleksandar Vuciq is also the regional leaders at the helm of this project and the mini Schengen co-operation proposal, for which some of the other Western Balkan countries remain very sceptical<3>.

On the other hand, Hosa says that she has not gone unnoticed that Serbia has “played some geopolitical games within their country” working with China and Russia while she was a candidate for EU membership, which could lead to concerns about where the country is really going geopolitically into the wings of Brussels, Moscow or Beijing.

European Union Relations Disaster with Western Balkans

The European Commission's vaccine scheme has been under much criticism for its slow spread.

Therefore, Hosa does not think that the decisions of some Eastern European governments to go only beyond MMA guidelines would negatively affect their position in the bloc or acceptance into the union.

In the Western Balkans, many countries did not qualify for COVAX structures to co-ordinate global shock purchases to ensure that poor countries were not at the price of a vaccine race, so they were dependent on EU remittances.

“Albania and Montenegro were steadfast in staying with the West, calling on the EU to be more serious or committed to”, she said.

“While a country like Serbia has been fully ready to work with anyone who can better serve its domestic agenda”, Hosa said.

She thinks the Western Balkan region has repeatedly been declined on the road to the EU, and the pandemic has only served to exacerbate <x0 minus the feeling that they have been forgotten”, not only in the diplomacy of vaccines, but in terms of heavy fiscal spending to keep economies on foot, Telegrafi broadcasts.

“The EU was not the first to receive vaccines in most of these countries, and while there is a very small number that we are talking about coming from other countries, the symbolic means”, Carragher explained.

Hosa says she is “optimist carefully for the EU scheme in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans after the bloc has bought so many doses, but says she would like to see concrete promises, especially when it comes to the eastern neighbourhood, which has “akoma has not paid much attention to”.

Carragher adds that choosing who buy vaccines is not the only decision that can affect long-term countries.

This is not just about who will provide the vaccine this year”, she said. “If you're becoming a producer of a Chinese or Russian vaccine, this is a long-term partnership ) is there any other meaningful or clear verse related to some of that vaccine diplomacy that hasn't yet been discovered?”

While both experts think geopolitical has played a role in buying vaccines in the East, Carragher adds that this was not the only consideration for countries facing a deadly illness.