EU's von der Leyen: Sealed deal for extra 1.8 billion BioNtech-Pfizer covid vaccine doses

Dhwani Mehta FXStreet

In another encouraging vaccine development from the Old Continent, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Saturday that the EU has struck a deal with BioNTech/Pfizer for up to 1.8 billion extra doses of their Covid-19 vaccine.

“Happy to announce that the EU Commission has just approved a contract for guaranteed 900 million doses (+900 million options) with BioNTech/Pfizer for 2021-2023," European Commission Chief tweeted from an EU summit in Portugal.

von der Leyen has previously said, “the mRNA technology used by BioNTech/Pfizer and other vaccine-makers has proven safe and effective.”

On Thursday, the EU Chief said that “we're vaccinating 30 Europeans every second.”

After a low start to the vaccination campaign, the 27-nation bloc is on track to have 70% of the adult population fully vaccinated by the end of July.

FX implication

The euro is likely to receive a shot in the arm from the positive vaccine news, which could aid EUR/USD break through the 1.2200 barrier.

The main currency pair rallied hard to hit fresh ten-month highs of 1.2172 on Friday after the US NFP figures disappointed markets by a big margin and smashed the greenback across the board.

Read: EUR/USD Weekly Forecast: Awful Nonfarm Payrolls back Fed’s “lower for longer” rates

Author

Dhwani Mehta

FXStreet

Residing in Mumbai (India), Dhwani is a Senior Analyst and Manager of the Asian session at FXStreet. She has over 10 years of experience in analyzing and covering the global financial markets, with specialization in Forex and commodities markets.

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