Vaccination obligation in the EU, von der Leyen: “Let’s discuss it”
It is time for the European Union to start “discussing” the advisability of introducing compulsory vaccination against covid-19. Thus the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, responding, at a press conference in Brussels, to a question about the sanctions envisaged by Greece for those over 60 who refuse to be vaccinated. And recalling that there are still about “150 million” of individuals who have not received the vaccination, even though many of them could protect themselves from the disease caused by Sars-CoV-2, he premised that whether or not to impose the obligation to be vaccinated “is absolute competence of the Member States. On this it is not up to me to give any recommendations “. Then he added: “If you ask me what my personal position is, two or three years ago I never thought I would see what we are seeing now. We have a horrible pandemic, we have vaccines that save lives, but they are not being used properly. everywhere. Therefore, this is a huge health cost. If we look at the numbers, we now have 77% of the adults vaccinated in the EU, and if we take the total population it is 66%, which means that one third of the European population is not vaccinated. There are 150 million people: there are many “. Read also Of course, he continues, “not everyone can be vaccinated: very young children, for example, or people in special health conditions, but the vast majority could be. Therefore, I think it is understandable and appropriate to conduct this discussion now, on how we can encourage and potentially think about compulsory vaccination within the EU. For this we need to discuss. We need a common approach, but I think – he concludes – that it is a discussion that must be held “.
