The Commission President posted on her Twitter account a message of praise for “Team Europe” over the bloc’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. She wrote: “As #TeamEurope, we work with partners around the globe to cushion the impact of the pandemic and initiate a sustainable recovery.
“We need to be better prepared to address future health crises, together. The work starts now.”
But the message soon backfired as Twitter users were quick to lambast the EU chief calling on her to resign over her failures.
One user wrote: “Focus on vaccinating EU residents, you are far behind!!”
And another: “Hurry up and get the vaccines out faster!”
And another: “‘The work starts now.’ What did you do the last 12 months?”
Several people called for Ms von der Leyen to step down.
One said: “You have exacerbated the problem in the EU. It is disgraceful that you mock Europeans by claiming catastrophic failure as victory. Resign.”
Another echoed: “What Team Europe are you talking about? Go home, everything you do turns into a calamity.”
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They wrote: “The only health crisis is the EU itself. Yet again it showed itself to be useless.
“Economic recovery always lags behind the rest of the world just like ordering vaccines. You are incompetent. We do not need the EU. We need the EEG back.
“Time to absolve the EU. Will save us billions.”
The EU has been under fire over its sluggish vaccination strategy.
To complicate things, European Union health ministers failed on Wednesday to agree common guidance on the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Some countries are restricting the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to certain age groups or suspending use after European and British regulators confirmed possible links to rare blood clots.
The findings pose a risk to vaccination plans in Europe.
Regulators say its benefits outweigh risks.
Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca said it was working with regulators to list the possible brain blood clots as “an extremely rare potential side effect” on the vaccines labels.
As of April 4, the European Medicines Agency had received reports of 169 cases of a rare brain blood clot known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), after 34 million doses had been administered in the European Economic Area – the EU plus Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland.
Most cases were in women under 60 years of age.
