Photos show vaccines arriving at hospitals across Europe, after regulators finally approved the Pfizer shot

Franck Huet, head of the hospital pharmacy division of Paris Hospitals, seen with boxes of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines in Paris on December 26, 202.STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

• Saturday marked the day that the first vaccines for the coronavirus were rolled out across Europe.
• The European Medicines Agency approved a vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech on Monday, joining the US and UK in doing so.
• The EMA has taken much longer to approve the vaccine, and the European Commission and EU governments had pressured the EMA to work faster, Reuters reported.
• Countries have been allocated a maximum 10,000 doses each as part of the first shipment.

Europe has begun to receive its first doses of the coronavirus vaccine.

On Monday, the European Medicines Agency approved the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, joining the US and UK in doing so, after an extended delay.

Doses of the vaccine were manufactured in Belgium and were shipped across the European Union on Friday night.

Out of the first batch, the EU's 27 member states are by and large limited to 10,000 doses each, The Associated Press reported.

"It's here, the good news at Christmas," Jens Spahn, the German Health Minister, said Saturday.

"At this moment, trucks are underway across Europe, across Germany and its regions, to deliver the first vaccine."

"This vaccine is the decisive key to end this pandemic," he said.

Here's what the moment looked like across Europe.