Vienna, Copenhagen are angry at the slow rollout of COVID-19 shots within the 27-nation supranational bloc

Austria and Denmark announced Tuesday that they will form an alliance with Israel to produce second-generation vaccines against mutations of the coronavirus, reported Reuters.

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Vienna and Copenhagen have become increasingly irritated at the slow rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in the 27-nation supranational European Union bloc, causing them to break ranks with Brussels. 

Delays in ordering, approving and distributing vaccines largely due to bureaucratic red tape have left EU countries trailing far behind Israel’s world-beating vaccination campaign, which has seen more than 3.3 million people receive both coronavirus shots.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said while the principle that the EU procures vaccines for member states was correct, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) had been too slow to approve them and lambasted pharmaceutical companies’ supply bottlenecks.