Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans has acknowledged that the European Union had made mistakes in devising a coronavirus vaccination strategy for the member states, the German news agency dpa reported on Sunday.

It is correct that mistakes were made in vaccine orders in Brussels and in the member states, Timmermans said in an interview for the Sunday edition of Tagesspiegel daily.

I am ready for an evaluation at the end of the pandemic and then we can determine what we did wrong and what we did well, he said.

However, the first thing that needs to be done is to ensure that all Europeans get a vaccine, Timmermans said.

The European approach is also in the interest of richer member states such as Germany, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen added in the interview.

The European Commission has ordered at least 1.4 billion doses of four vaccines approved in the Union, which should be more than enough for its 450 million inhabitants.

However, it is being criticised for a hesitant approach and strategic mistakes in vaccine procurement.

Some European countries consider the vaccine distribution system unfair.

Leaders of Austria, Czechia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia and Slovenia on Saturday called for high-level talks on fair coronavirus vaccine distribution, warning that the way the system currently works could create major disparities between member states by summer.

In a letter to the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and von der Leyen, they warned that if such a system continued, major disparities between member states would continue to occur and increase by the summer, so some would be able to achieve herd immunity in several weeks, while others would lag behind.

The European Commission responded that EU member states had asked for flexibility themselves and decided to deviate from the rule to distribute the vaccine according to the population size, thus removing the responsibility for the uneven distribution from itself.

“Member States decided to depart from the Commission’s proposal by adding a flexibility which allows agreeing on a different distribution of doses, taking into account the epidemiological situation and the vaccination needs of each country. Under this system, if a Member State decides not to take up its pro rata allocation, the doses are redistributed among the other interested Member States,” the EC said in a press release published on Saturday.

“It would be up to the Member States to find an agreement if they wished to return to the pro rata basis,” the Commission added in the press release.