BRUSSELS—The European Commission said on Tuesday that 70 percent of the European Union’s adult population had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, hitting a target it set at the beginning of the year. In January, the Commission said that “by summer 2021, member states should have vaccinated a minimum of 70 percent of the adult population.” This was interpreted as meaning that each of the 27 EU member states should hit that target by September. Many, fearing they could not, criticized the Commission in internal meetings, documents seen by Reuters showed. Now the bloc cumulatively has vaccinated 70 percent of its adult population, which means that at least 255 million people have received either two doses of Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca, or Moderna vaccines, or one shot of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson jab. The situation differs vastly between countries. Malta has fully vaccinated over 90 percent of its adult population, data from …