Zelensky's vaccination and Fidesz's exit: 8 March 2021 in context
A look back at what had been reported by 8 March 2021 on Ukraine's presidential vaccination and Hungary's break with the European People's Party.
What had Ukraine's president done in the days before 8 March 2021, and what was happening elsewhere in European politics? Reports from the preceding week gave two answers.
On 2 March 2021, President Volodymyr Zelensky received a vaccination against COVID-19. The vaccine was Covishield, the version of the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine, and the shot was reported as his first dose. The report placed the event within the wider course of the pandemic in Ukraine.
Fidesz leaves the EPP
On 3 March 2021, Hungary's ruling party, Fidesz, withdrew from the European People's Party (EPP), the conservative bloc in the European Parliament. The move came after the EPP changed its rules so that it could expel a party's entire delegation.
Fidesz's membership had already been suspended since 2019. That suspension followed a national campaign in which the party accused the then-European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the philanthropist George Soros of conspiring to flood Europe with migrants.
Taken together, the reports show a week in which Ukraine's head of state took part in the vaccination effort, while a major party left the European Parliament's conservative bloc over its rules and its past campaign.
