Syringes prepared at the Brussels Expo Covid-19 vaccination center in Brussels, Belgium, on Friday 5 March 2021.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
LONDON – The introduction of the coronavirus vaccine in Europe has been put back in the spotlight after the Italian government blocked a shipment of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines to Australia.
The EU has struggled to spread Covid-19 shots across the region by 27 members, and behind the advanced economies in the number of vaccinations per citizen. There are complaints that regulators are too slow to approve vaccines; there were manufacturing and delivery problems and national red tape hampering the process.
But new questions were raised on Thursday as Italy became the first EU country to use the bloc’s new regulations to stop exports if necessary. The move stopped about 250,000 doses of the vaccine from Anagni, Italy, which is being shipped to Australia.
The deployment of vaccine in Europe “will be an uphill battle,” Daniel Gros, director of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, Belgium, told CNBC on Friday.
How the EU got here
The EU announced in late January new rules allowing European member states, where coronavirus shots are manufactured, to ban their exports in case the pharmaceutical company in question does not comply with existing contracts with the bloc.
The EU and AstraZeneca are at odds because the drugmaker was unable to deliver as many shots as the bloc expected for the first quarter. There were also doubts about how many shots the business will achieve in the second quarter.
The EU is being toasted for something the US is doing in a more radical form.
Daniel Gros
director of CEPS
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said late last month that the shortage of vaccines was due to yield issues and that his firm was working 24 hours a day to increase production.
French Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Friday morning that France could repeat Italy’s move. German Health Minister Jens Spahn said there had been no reason so far to stop sending vaccines made in Germany to other countries, according to Reuters.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last month that about 95% of EU-produced vaccines exported since the end of January were manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, as both companies respect their agreement with the EU. .
At the time, she also said that the US and the UK had systems in place to block the export of these vaccines.
Europe is ‘fried’ for something others do too
“The EU is being fried for something that the US is doing in a more radical form,” Gros, of CEPS, also said.
“The amount involved was small. But as usual, people are jumping on symbols. The US does not have the problem of stopping the vaccines at the border, because no one will even think about trying to export something from the US. not, “he added.
In an executive order in early December, President Donald Trump then ordered the U.S. to export only vaccines produced in the country once it was determined that there were sufficient doses to vaccinate the U.S. population.
“Once it has been established that there is a sufficient supply of COVID-19 vaccine doses for all Americans who choose to be vaccinated … (US) international access to the US Government’s COVID-19 vaccines for allies, partners and others as appropriate, facilitated and in accordance with applicable law, ”the order reads.
Shipping to Australia has been blocked because the country is not on the EU’s list of vulnerable countries. EU regulation exempts distribution to poorer countries from the barrier by member states.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told a news conference on Friday that the country’s vaccination program would “continue unabated”, adding that the consignment in question was not one they had counted on for implementation.
Australia apparently requested that the European Commission review Italy’s decision to block the shipment, but Morrison admitted that he understood why there would be a great deal of anxiety in Italy and in Europe.
“We must not forget that the EU provides vaccinations to the South of the world while preventing shipments to Australia,” Alberto Alemanno, professor of European law at HEC Paris, told CNBC on Friday.
He added that the “EU export control regulations embody the legitimate attempt to achieve a degree of sovereign autonomy.”