00:00E voi domande se quelle è votre position sull'obligazione del vaccino contro la Covid?
00:05Grazie.
00:09Yes, first of all, this is pure member state competence.
00:14Therefore, in respect to that, it's not me to give any kind of recommendation.
00:20If you're asking me what my personal position is,
00:25two or three years ago, I would never have thought to witness what we see right now.
00:34That we have this horrible pandemic, we have the vaccines, the life-saving vaccines,
00:42but they are not being used adequately everywhere.
00:47And thus, this costs, of course, an enormous, or this is an enormous health cost coming along.
00:55If you look at the numbers, we have now 77% of the adults in the European Union vaccinated,
01:01or if you take the whole population, it's 66%.
01:06And this means one third of the European population is not vaccinated.
01:11These are 150 million people.
01:13This is a lot.
01:15And not each and every one can be vaccinated.
01:19So they are very small children, for example, or people with special medical conditions.
01:24But the vast majority could.
01:27And therefore, I think it is understandable and appropriate to lead this discussion now
01:35how we can encourage and potentially think about mandatory vaccination within the European Union.
01:43This needs discussion.
01:44This needs a common approach.
01:48But it is a discussion that I think has to be led.
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