If necessary, the EU treaties should be amended, Merkel said during an online discussion of the European People’s Party about the future of Europe.

“I believe that Europe needs more competencies in the area of health,” Merkel said. “Probably you also have to change the treaties for that. I have always been open to treaty changes if they make sense. This isn’t an end in itself.”

She repeated her defence of the EU’s vaccination strategy as well.

Europe also exported doses of the jab, she said, helping enable Israel and other countries to vaccinate as many people as they did.

Merkel acknowledged that mistakes were certainly made concerning Europe’s vaccine supplies. “You learn,” she said. “This is also a new field.”

She said that the decision to procure the vaccine through Brussels was “absolutely right” and added: “So it really didn’t all go wrong.”