ROME – The European Union stumbled at the end of March with a deployment of the Covid-19 vaccine plagued by shortages and logistical tampering when Mario Draghi took matters into his own hands. The new Italian prime minister has seized a consignment of vaccines destined for Australia – and with them an opportunity to show that a new, aggressive and powerful force has arrived in the European bloc.
The move shook a Brussels leadership that apparently slept at the switch. Within a few weeks, the European Union, in part because of behind-the-scenes pressure and engineering, approved even broader and stricter measures to curb the export of Covid-19 vaccines in Europe. The Australian experiment, as officials in Brussels and Italy call it, was a turning point for Europe and Italy.
It also showed that Mr. Known as the former president of the European Central Bank, who helped save the euro, Draghi was prepared to lead Europe from behind, where Italy found itself years ago, and lagged behind its European partners in economic dynamism and much-needed reforms.
In his short time – he took power in February after a political crisis – Mr. Draghi applied his European relations quickly, his ability to navigate through the EU institutions and his almost messianic reputation of making Italy a player on the continent in a way had not been in decades.
With his friend, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, leaving office in September, President Emmanuel Macron of France next year ahead of difficult elections and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen struggling to show competence, Mr. Draghi ready to fill a leadership vacuum in Europe.
He seems to be increasingly speaking for the whole of Europe.
“The difference is that everyone, when Mario Draghi speaks, knows that he is not only impressing on the Italian interest,” but that the European Union, the Italian Minister for European Affairs, Vincenzo Amendola, said in an interview.
Because he knew full well that Mr. Draghi derived his influence from his international reputation, Mr. Amendola said that given the potential lack of leadership in Europe, “you need stable leaders who bring trust.”
At home, Mr. Draghi’s vaccine gambit in March provided political red meat to an Italian population who were hungry for vaccines and a sense of agency, but it was calculated that it would improve the leverage of Europe as a whole.
Abroad, his first stop to Libya, he sought to restore the declining Italian influence in the troubled former Italian colony, which is critical to Italy’s energy needs, and efforts to stem illegal migration from Africa. He also did not hesitate to wage a struggle with Turkey’s autocratic leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “With these dictators – let’s call them what they are – you have to be honest in your divergent views and visions about society,” he said. Draghi said.
But within the European Union, Mr. Draghi showed that Italy is now beating above its weight.
Last week, Mr. Draghi, who in turn is drunk and clumsy but always direct, kept the pressure on Brussels when it comes to exporting vaccines. He referred to ‘lightweight’ efforts in the original contract negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies, and noted that the European Union, despite the new strict rules on export bans, had yet to act.
But he also has his criticism of Mrs. Von der Leyen’s commission deftly balanced by defending her after Mr. Erdogan denied her a chair rather than a bench during a visit to Turkey last week, saying he “is very sorry about the humiliation”.
In his debut at a European meeting as Prime Minister of Italy in February, Mr. Draghi, 73, made it clear he was not there to cheerlead. He said at an economic summit with heavy mysteries such as his successor to the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, to ‘curb your enthusiasm’ when it comes to a narrower fiscal union.
That kind of union is the long-term ambition of Mr. Draghi. But before he can get closer to it or tackle deep economic problems at home, the people around him say that Mr. Draghi is well aware that he needs to resolve Europe’s response to the pandemic.
Italian officials say his relinquishment of the contract negotiations, which were concluded before he took office, gave him the freedom to act. He suggested that AstraZeneca had misled the bloc over the supply of vaccine, and sold the same doses to Europe two or three times, and he immediately withdrew an export ban.
“He immediately understood that these were vaccinations and that the problem was supplies,” said Lia Quartapelle, a member of parliament responsible for foreign affairs for the Italian Democratic Party.
On 25 February, at a video conference of the European Council with Ms. Von der Leyen and other leaders of the European Union joined. The Heads of State warmly welcomed him. “We owe you so much,” Bulgaria’s prime minister told him.
Then Mrs. Von der Leyen an optimistic slide show about the deployment of Europe in. But the new member of the club told Ms von der Leyen outright that he found her prediction for vaccines hardly reassuring and that he did not know if the numbers AstraZeneca had promised could be trusted, according to an official present at the meeting.
He asked Brussels to get louder and go faster.
Me. Merkel went with him and the numbers of Mrs. Von der Leyen, who put the president of the Commission, a former German defense minister, on the back foot. Mr. Macron, what me. Von der Leyen’s nomination advocated, but quickly formed a strategic alliance with Mr. Draghi closed, piled up. He urged Brussels, which negotiated the vaccine contracts on behalf of its members, to “put pressure on companies that do not comply.”
At the time, Mrs. Von der Leyen in Germany was criticized for her alleged weakness over the vaccine issue, even though her own commissioners argued that the aggressive response to a ban on vaccine exports could harm the roadblock.
Mr. Draghi tightened the screws with his live speech during the February meeting. So too mr. Macron, who emerged as his partner – the two are called ‘Dracon’ by the Germans. He is campaigning for a more muscular Europe.
Behind the scenes, Mr. Draghi draws his more public hard line with a courtship campaign. The Italian, who is known for calling European leaders and pharmaceutical executives privately on their cell phones, said Mrs. Issued by Von der Leyen.
According to all the players in Europe, he knew her the least well according to the European Commission and Italian officials, and he wanted to rectify that and make sure she did not feel isolated.
In early March, when shortages of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine continued to disrupt Europe’s deployment, increasing public frustration and political pressure, he said. Draghi found the perfect gift for Ms von der Leyen: 250,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine seized from Australia.
“He told me that in the days before he was very much on the phone with von der Leyen,” she said. Quartapelle said, who one day with the freezing of the delivery with mr. Draghi spoke. “He worked a lot with von der Leyen to convince her.”
According to Commission officials, the move in Brussels was appreciated because it was Ms. Von der Leyen picked it up and gave her political cover, while at the same time making her look tough to record.
The episode became a clear example of how Mr. Draghi builds relationships with the potential to make big payouts not only for itself and Italy, but also for the whole of Europe.
When the Commission became suspicious on March 25 of 29 million doses of AstraZeneca in a warehouse outside Rome, Ms. Von der Leyen mnr. Draghi called for help, officials with knowledge of the calls said. He asked, and the police were quickly dispatched.
Meanwhile, Mr. Draghi and Mr. Macron, along with Spain and others, continued to support a tougher line from the Commission on vaccine exports. The Netherlands was against it, and Germany, with a vibrant pharmaceutical market, was uneasy.
When the European leaders met again on March 25 during a video conference, Ms. Von der Leyen had more confidence in the political and pragmatic benefits of stopping the export of Covid vaccines in the European Union. She again offered chips, which this time allowed a broader restriction on the export of the six-week block, and Mr. Draghi fell back into a supporting role.
“Let me say thank you for all the work that has been done,” he said.
After the meeting, Mr. Draghi, however modest, gave Italy – and even enlargement – credit for the steps that made export bans possible. “This is more or less the discussion that took place,” he told reporters, “because that was the issue we originally raised.”