A nurse administers a dose of Covid-19 vaccine at the Woluwe-Saint-Pierre vaccine center in Brussels, Belgium.
Jean-Christophe Guillaume | Getty Images News | Getty Images
LONDON – The European Commission submitted new plans Wednesday to ban the export of Covid-19 vaccines from the 27-member bloc.
Officials are concerned that pharmaceutical companies will miss delivery targets in the coming months. And the Commission, the EU’s executive arm, wants to make sure member states get all the promised vision for the second quarter.
These vaccines will be crucial until they reach the target of vaccinating 70% of the EU adult population by the end of the summer.
“While our Member States are fighting the third wave of the pandemic and not all companies are delivering on their contract, the EU is the only major OECD representative to continue. continue to deliver large – scale vaccines to dozens of countries. But open roads should run into both directions, “European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement.
The proposals build on existing mechanisms, and will introduce two changes where EU member states will look at “proportionality” and “proportionality” with the ex- their opposite.
They will now consider whether the country of destination restricts its own exports of vaccines, or raw materials, and whether the country of destination is ahead or behind the EU with the distribution of the vaccine.
AstraZeneca controversy
This tougher situation from Brussels comes after it suffered a setback in the number of vaccines delivered by AstraZeneca. Earlier this year, the Anglo-Swedish company said it could only deliver 30 million doses of its vaccine, developed in conjunction with Oxford University, in the first quarter instead of around 90 million doses.
And, recently, the pharma giant cut delivery expectations for the second quarter to less than half of what the block originally expected.
The AstraZeneca bullet is important for its wider distribution in the European Union, as some countries favor it because it is cheaper and requires less stringent maintenance conditions, compared to others.
An EU official, who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the case, said at a preparatory meeting Wednesday that the new proposal is not “an export ban.” “There is a continuing shortage in the production of vaccines and there is also … a balance that is not fair enough when it comes to distribution,” the official said, adding that the idea is to overcome this gap and balance balancing vaccine supply.
Von der Leyen already suggested last week that the EU should consider stricter vaccine controls. She said at the time that although the EU had exported 41 million doses of Covid-19 shots since January to 33 countries worldwide, some countries did not show the same level of fairness.
Data from the commission show that, from exports to date, the UK has received the majority, over 10 million doses; followed by Canada, which received 6.6 million; and then Japan with 5.4 million.
‘Not against the UK’
The renewed stance in Brussels could be an issue for the UK, which has received the largest number of coronavirus images produced in the EU to date, and where the vaccination rate has long fallen. ahead of the EU level.
“It is not against the UK, it is to ensure that AstraZeneca adheres to the commitments it will vis-à-vis with the European Union,” Arancha Gonzalez, Spain’s foreign minister, told Squawk. Box Europe “at CNBC on Wednesday.
“The export restrictions we have prepared were never intended to be against countries. They should have made sure that pharmaceutical companies complied with their promises, with the contracts they made with the ‘European Commission, “she said.
A UK government spokesman said on Wednesday: “We are all fighting the same pandemic – vaccines are an international collaboration with major scientists around the world. And we will continue to work with our European partners to deliver the vaccine distribution. “
The Commission announced at the end of January that member states would be able to prevent sightings from leaving the bloc when pharmaceutical companies were failing to deliver and when the vaccines were failing. going to countries that the EU did not consider vulnerable.
Wednesday’s new plans build on this legislation. But the old rules expire at the end of March.
The latest proposal will be discussed by the 27 heads of state on Thursday at an EU summit.
Earlier this week, the Prime Minister of Ireland, Michael Martin, warned of a tougher vaccine export policy, saying it could weaken the supply of raw materials for vaccine production in the EU. “I’m very much against it. I think it would be a very attractive step,” Martin told RTE radio.