The art and craft of vaccination policy against Covid-19 in five EU countries

Covid-19 vaccination campaign has been a worldwide challenge that all countries faced in their health response to the pandemic emergency from late 2020 onwards. That challenge concerned primarily the organization of vaccine rollout and the design of policy tools to counter vaccine hesitancy, which is a non-dichotomous, complex phenomenon that requires tailor-made policy solutions to be thwarted. Most recent publications on the Covid-19 vaccination campaigns focus on the causes of vaccination hesitancy in single countries or in comparative perspective. A more limited number of qualitative studies descriptively trace the organization of the vaccination campaign in one or few countries, sometimes estimating its effectiveness for vaccine uptake. This article tries to bridge these two strands of literature by systematically comparing the instruments employed in the Covid-19 vaccination campaign in five EU countries and formulating hypotheses about the reasons (including policy legacy and vaccine hesitancy) for the differences and the varying effectiveness of the strategies adopted. The conclusions try to draw lessons and make some recommendations for policymakers.