Choosing between the ‘East’ and the ‘West’: Media discourses about the ‘Eastern’ vaccines and ‘EU incompetence’ during the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Hungary

The third wave of the coronavirus pandemic coincided with the arrival and distribution of the first coronavirus vaccines for the member states of the European Union. However, while mass immunization in the EU progressed relatively rapidly from a global perspective, it lagged significantly behind Israel, the United Kingdom, or the United States, which resulted in considerable dissatisfaction among political actors and members of the general public, in particular in light of the rising number of cases as result of the unfolding third wave. Consequently, criticism of the EU administration and the procurement conditions soon emerged in several countries. In Hungary, the government also actively sought ways to increase the number of available vaccines by procuring two further vaccines (Sinopharm and Sputnik V) not approved by the European Medicines Agency. These vaccines got quickly labelled as ‘Eastern’ vaccines and became the objects of intense political debates. Governmental politicians and the pro-governmental media presented the delays in the EU’s vaccine procurement as yet another proof of the incompetence of the Brussels elite, while emphasized that without these ‘Eastern’ vaccines, the Hungarian vaccination program could not have progressed as quickly as it did. Contrastingly, most oppositional politicians questioned the safety and effectiveness of the ‘Eastern’ vaccines, and some even labelled their distribution as a ‘human experiment’. Our research follows up these debates in the pro-governmental and the non-governmental media during the third wave of the pandemic between February and May 2021. We analyze the political and media discourses based on two pro-governmental (magyarnemzet.hu, pestisracok.hu) and two non-governmental (telex.hu, hang.hu) major online media sources. Our analysis contributes to the understanding of how specific policy issues can be dramatized and raised to a more general, normative level, in particularly during such emotionally highly intensive time periods as the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the ways specific policy issues can be framed along the ‘East-West’ and the ‘federal Europa – national sovereignty’ divides.