Parliament has allowed government to negotiate Covid-19 vaccines outside the EU

At the last regular sitting of Parliament today, March 5, before going into recess before the elections, lawmakers voted to instruct the government to discuss with the European Commission Bulgaria's ability to negotiate vaccines with countries outside the European Union and the European Economic Area.

With this wording, the government changed the opposition BSP party's request for the cabinet to negotiate the delivery of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. This caused an exchange of remarks.

This decision was taken without the votes of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF). The government motivated this reformulation of the BSP's request not only for the Sputnik vaccine, but also to give the government a wider opportunity to negotiate other vaccines outside the EU, as well as to comply with European legislation, which requires the Russian vaccine to be approved by the European Medicines Agency.