San Marino Covid-free but in the crossfire between the EU and Russia
The Republic relegated to a-regulatory limbo for having recourse to the Sputnik V vaccine. The certificates of its citizens are accepted in Italy, but only until October 15, 2021. The risk of segregation from the neighboring territories of Romagna and Marche in the alarm of Igor Pellicciari, full professor of History of Institutions and International Relations at the University of Urbino
A little more than two months from the end of the year, it is not risky to hypothesize that 2021 will go down in history as the year of the vaccine (or rather – vaccines) anti-Covid.
If this is an almost monotonous issue that has catalyzed global public opinion, the type of political debate that has involved it has varied a lot over the months.
It is interesting how, in the semester of the year, characterized by a clash on the obligation of vaccines and Green Pass, the geo-political arguments that had dominated the phase of the difficult start of the immunization campaigns have almost disappeared.
When, faced with the scarcity of available doses, under strong popular internal pressure, many European leaders were faced with the dilemma of asking for help from “rivals” Russia and China to obtain the missing vaccines.
It then seemed possible that ancient divisions such as being sidelined or even suspended, as the precedent of Russian medical aid accepted by the US in April 2020 hoped, hailed as a gesture of relaxation between Moscow and Washington.
Others objected, however, that giving in to the temptation of the state-based vaccine (in particular the Russian one) entailed a high geo-political price in the medium term and an inevitable easing of Western sanctions against Moscow, playing the game of the Kremlin and of Vladimir Putin.
Brussels followed this latter orientation but, with the customary action of a bureaucracy accustomed to deciding without governing, presented it as a technical-administrative argument.
The use of Sputnik V was bound to its authorization by the EMA which – easy prophets – we predicted would be neither easy nor fast.
Keep up appearances in the short term, this trick it has generated ambiguities that worsen with the passage of time, creating real paradoxes.
The one most visible to us, for obvious reasons of closeness, concerns the strange case of the Republic of San Marino.
Despite being the first sovereign country in the world to be able to declare itself Without Covid thanks to a mass vaccination campaign, the Serenissima is still today relegated to an a-normative limbo for the “simple” fact of having resorted to Sputnik V.
The vaccination certificates of its citizens are accepted in Italy, but only by virtue of a derogation valid until October 15, 2021. After that, in the absence of new time extensions that move the problem without solving it, the prospect of a segregation from the neighboring territories of Romagna and Marche.
With heavy repercussions on the daily life of an enclave in the Italian territory.
The lack of weight given to the scientific data of the empirical study conducted on the Titan by Spallanzani of Rome and the University of Ferrara, which certified the high efficacy of Sputnik V, already anticipated by the scientific journal, proves that medical reticence is instrumental. Lancet reference.
rather, the open words of condemnation addressed to them by the President of the European Parliament, Davide Sassoli for having used the Russian vaccine they betray a will to punish the small Republic that is difficult to admit. Even less to justify, due to the contradictions it underlines on the European front.
In the first place, the government of San Marino has acted to defend the health of its citizens and cannot be criticized for having done what all the EU member states and major European leaders have declared to be (at least in words) the first objective of the their action.
On several occasions the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of San Marino, Luca Beccari, stressed that the fallback on Sputnik V is not due to a political choice but to the chronic delay of the vaccines promised by Europe via Italy in support of the small country, at the top of the world statistics for Covid mortality in relation to the population.
Secondly, having found themselves in similar emergencies and the absence of alternative conditions, the same Italian diplomats serving in Moscow (led by the Ambassador Pasquale Terraciano) had not hesitated to be vaccinated with Sputnik V, setting an example for the large Italian community. Among the most vaccinated foreign presences in Russia.
Finally, if one of the ways to get the Green Pass is that of being cured of Covid and therefore having developed a sufficiency, it can be difficult because a test that certifies the level present in the vaccinated San Marino cannot be accepted by the Italian authorities.
As if the real goal were not that, repeated endlessly by all the media, to vaccinate the greatest number of people and achieve mass immunization.
Which brings back to the initial discourse on the type of rhetoric moved against Sputnik V and to the European weakness of not having immediately used arguments of political opposition to Russia as such, avoiding improbable justifications, transferred into a myriad of administrative provisions that contradict each other.
Had we done so, today it would be easier to proceed with exceptions by authority sic-et-simpliciter in cases like San Marino instead of wrapping up and making them yet another collateral victim of a crossfire between the EU and Russia, which started well before the pandemic.
The problem is that such clear talk would also have revealed that on the Covid game even in the Europe that loves to portray solidarity and democracy, political reasoning (not to mention economic ones) can come first and prevail over decisions to safeguard the public health.
Evidently there was a lack of courage.