According to experts, the EU’s decision to impose export controls on coronavirus vaccines is ‘very problematic’, warning that it could lead to a collapse in world supplies if other countries followed suit.
“There is a significant risk that the EU making this decision will cause a cascade in other countries that impose (vaccination) export bans,” Suerie Moon, co-director of the Global Health Center Graduate Institute in Geneva, told CNBC on Monday. . .
“There is a real risk that we will see a breakdown of vaccines across borders, the same kind of yields we saw a year ago when countries, including the EU, blocked food and even masks and other essential medical supplies. “It is disastrous at an international level.”
In the worst case, she said: “the biggest risk is that it will be an example that many other countries will follow, and it will lead to a collapse in the global vaccine supply.”
Export control
People are queuing up to turn the Chinese-made Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine outside the Belgrade exchange into a vaccination center on January 25, 2021.
ANDREJ ISAKOVIC | AFP | Getty Images
Despite the fact that the measure was not an “export ban”, it does allow member states to restrict the export of coronavirus vaccines made in the block if they believe that the vaccine manufacturer does not have existing contracts with the EU. did not comply.
It contains exemptions for a variety of countries outside the EU but within Europe, such as Albania and Serbia, a range of countries in North Africa and any of the 92 low- and middle-income countries covered by the COVAX initiative.
Moon said that: “The EU has certainly introduced some pressure valves to allow exports to certain countries in the world, but there are still many countries that are very dependent on EU production and they are going to be quite hurt . “
The bloc made the announcement amid growing concerns and ugly public disputes with vaccine manufacturers over a lack of supplies to the bloc.
Vaccine maker Pfizer has said it is temporarily reducing production of its shot, developed with German biotechnology BioNTech, as it upgrades production facilities in Belgium, while AstraZeneca has also hit the EU hard by announcing that it has would deliver far fewer doses of vaccinations than initially in the first quarter, citing problems at its Dutch and Belgian plants.
The delays have put more pressure on the European Commission, which has been criticized for its lack of speed in ordering and approving vaccines, and their implementation.
The move to impose export controls has particularly upset the UK, following a week of tensions in the supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is also being manufactured in two locations in Britain.
The EU has indicated that supplies from British facilities should be diverted to Europe, which could lead to a dispute with the drugmaker and the UK government. It has escalated to the point where the EU has said it would dominate part of the Brexit deal to prevent EU vaccines from entering the UK via Northern Ireland.
It soon turned the decision into a public outcry, including from the World Health Organization, which warned against the dangers of ‘vaccine nationalism’. The EU has assured the UK that it will receive vaccine supplies in the block.
Pandora’s box
Simon J. Evenett, a professor of international trade and economic development at the University of St. Gallen, said on Monday that the move by the EU is tantamount to the opening of ‘Pandora’s box’ and that it could have unintended consequences.
He said the restrictions could cause concern among foreign governments for several reasons, including the fact that the ‘standard for approving the export of Covid-19 vaccine is unclear’, and that these decisions could be ‘arbitrary’. He also noted that it may not expire on March 31, 2021, as promised.
Evenett warned that the move, “spread across the Covid-19 vaccine supply chain, to include key ingredients needed to produce and distribute the vaccines,” and could even lead to the export of curbs on other essential goods such as food, energy and other medicines.
CSL staff will be working in the laboratory on 8 November 2020 in Melbourne, Australia, where they will start manufacturing the AstraZeneca-Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine.
Darrian Traynor | Getty Images
Such scenarios “would cause the damage done to the EU’s public health systems and to its multinationals,” he said.
“Disruption in vaccine supply chains will slow the vaccination rate in the EU and elsewhere, leading to unnecessary deaths and an even slower economic recovery. If the European Commission realizes that it is on the verge of opening Pandora’s Box, it finds an elegant way to withdraw its export control regime from the Covid-19 regime, ”he said.
“By doing so, the EU would be able to regain its reputation as a defender of multilateralism and the rules-based global trading system. This morning, its reputation is in tatters.”