The covid vaccines were not granted special "emergency use" anything, at least not in the EU. They just parallelized some of the trials and didn't encounter any

The covid vaccines were not granted special "emergency use" anything, at least not in the EU. They just parallelized some of the trials and didn't encounter any setbacks. No steps were "skipped". The mRNA technology had also already been in development for a while, just not applied as a medical product (much like how multi-touch had been around for a long time before the iPhone capitalized on it). They were also handled with an abundance of caution, which is why many countries suspended the Oxford vaccine after initial reports of adverse effects in young women despite the extremely low frequency hinting at sampling bias rather than genuine side-effects.