Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has confirmed that Hungary has lent 300,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines to Slovenia to help it speed up its inoculation campaign.
Following talks with Prime Minister Janez Jansa and Health Minister Janez Poklukar in Ljubljana, Minister Szijjártó said Hungary already had enough jabs stored for everyone registered in the country. Successful protection efforts in neighboring countries also contribute to the safety of Hungarians. The speedier their inoculation campaign progresses, the sooner Hungarians can travel without restrictions and without the risk of infection, he added.
Szijjártó added that the pandemic has posed extreme challenges even for rich and strong countries. Unfortunately, the European Union has botched vaccine procurement, he said. “That is not a politically motivated opinion, it is a truth bolstered by numbers,” as evidenced in the progress by how Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom surpassed the EU, he said. At the same time, Hungary handled the pandemic very successfully, and is leading the pack in Europe in vaccination. “We see the vaccine for what it is, a tool to save lives,” rather than an ideological and geopolitical issue, he said.