The companies BioNTech and Pfizer will deliver 12.5 million doses of their corona vaccine to the European Union this year.
Member states will receive the drug within five days, said BioNTech manager Sean Marett.
The EU is, therefore expected to receive fewer doses than the United States. There should be 20 million doses available there by the end of the year.
Many EU member states want to start vaccinating citizens against the virus this year.
With the 12.5 million vaccines arriving in the short term, only a fraction of the hundreds of millions of EU residents can be vaccinated.
This forces countries to make difficult choices about who comes first. The choice often falls on care providers or the elderly. People also need to be vaccinated twice, so two doses are required per person.