(Bloomberg) -- Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz accused the European Union of allowing an opaque “bazaar” for vaccine doses to develop that threatens the bloc’s ability to equitably combat the spread of the coronavirus.

Secret deals between nations and pharmaceutical companies run contrary to the policy of inoculating the bloc’s population equally across countries, Kurz said Friday at a press conference in Vienna. He said Malta and the Netherlands were among countries with significantly higher access to vaccine doses than countries like Bulgaria and Croatia.

“It is hard to get any information because of the secrecy clauses in the contracts,” said Kurz, adding that the opacity makes fighting “the biggest challenge of our generation” more difficult.

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