Vaccine Battle Heats Up With
EU Ready to Halt U.K. Shipments
By
Nikos Chrysoloras, Suzi Ring and Joe Mayes
21 Mart 2021 23:30 GMT+3 Updated on 22 Mart 2021 11:29 GMT+3
·
EU to review, and likely block, Astra shipments going
to U.K.
·
The
move may stoke allegations of ‘vaccine nationalism’
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In this article
The European Union is ready to start
withholding Covid-19 shots from the U.K., risking a sharp deterioration in
relations with London in a bid to turn around its lackluster vaccination
campaign.
The
EU will likely reject authorizations to export AstraZeneca Plc’s coronavirus vaccines and their
ingredients to the U.K. until the drugmaker fulfills its delivery obligations
to the 27-nation bloc, according to a senior EU official.
The conflict between the EU and the U.K. has been
growing since Astra informed Brussels it wouldn’t deliver the number of shots
it had promised for the first quarter. Both sides have blamed each other for
export curbs and nationalism, posing a risk to the fragile post-Brexit trade
relationship agreed on in December.
Astra has been at the center of the EU’s vaccination problems since production
issues emerged in January. Most recently, its shot was temporarily suspended in
much of Europe over blood-clot fears.
While the EU drug regulator backed the vaccine last week, and U.S. trial
results published Monday said there were no safety concerns, public trust in
the shot has plummeted in Europe. The majority of people in Germany, France,
Italy and Spain now see the vaccine as unsafe, a survey by YouGov published
by The Telegraph on Monday shows.
The
EU, which has pledged to immunize 70% of adults by the end of September, is
struggling to overcome a slow start to its inoculation campaign. The bloc has
administered 12 doses per 100 people, less than a third of what the U.K. has
managed, according to Bloomberg’s Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker. The U.K. vaccinated more than 1.5
million people on Friday and Saturday, setting daily records on successive
days.
The European Commission said last week
that it would restrict exports of vaccines to countries that don’t reciprocate
or that already have high vaccination rates. The U.K. is the largest recipient
of doses made in the EU, receiving 10 million of 42 million shots from the bloc
so far.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Commission
President Ursula von der Leyen spoke last week and a new round of high-level
diplomacy is expected among leaders ahead of a summit in Brussels.
“Vaccine nationalism, this kind of breathless
speculation about limiting supply doesn’t do anybody any good,” Helen Whately,
a junior U.K. health minister, told Sky News on Monday. Von der Leyen “made a
commitment to the prime minister that the EU wouldn’t block companies from
fulfilling their contractual obligations to supply vaccinations,” she said,
urging the EU to “actively stand by that commitment.”
According to the EU official, the bloc has contracts
with Astra that aren’t being respected, and any vaccines and their ingredients
produced in European factories will be reserved for local deliveries. The
official asked not to be named because the decisions are under consideration
and haven’t been made public.
EU
leaders meeting this week will discuss the plan. Countries including Italy and
France said they were open to exploring the export ban while others, such as Ireland, Belgium
and the Netherlands, urged caution and warned about the impact on European
companies, according to a diplomatic note seen by Bloomberg.
AstraZeneca -- one of four approved in the bloc -- is
now expected to deliver 30 million shots to the EU by the end of this month,
less than half of what it initially committed to.
Johnson has called EU leaders about the dispute in
recent days, including Dutch premier Mark Rutte and Belgium’s Alexander De
Croo, and is prepared for more conversations before this week’s summit, a
person familiar with the matter said.
Slow Rollout
Pfizer Inc. warned that the free movement of
supplies between the U.K. and the EU is critical to the production of its
vaccine. Manufacturing of lipids -- the fatty substance used to deliver the
genetic material at the heart of the vaccine Pfizer makes with its German
partner BioNTech SE --
takes place at a secret location in the U.K. before shipping to the EU where
the shots are completed.
The EU official added that there are no outstanding
requests for U.K. exports from Astra’s production facility in the Netherlands,
but should such a request be made, it will likely be rejected. A production
plant in the Netherlands and one in Belgium produce ingredients for the Astra
shot.
“The Netherlands in principle allows
exports to continue until told otherwise by the European Commission,” the Dutch
government said Sunday. “It is of paramount importance that Brussels, London
and AstraZeneca reach a deal promptly on the vaccines produced by the company
in facilities falling under both contracts.”
The
EU isn’t alone in having supply issues. The U.K. is facing a
“significant” four-week cut to the supply of Covid-19 vaccines
from late March. A delayed shipment of the Astra vaccine from India and a batch
requiring re-testing are behind the disruption.
U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky News on
Sunday that the EU should allow Astra to keep supplying Britain and warned the
bloc would pay a heavy price if it tried to interfere with those shipments.
“The commission knows deep down that this would be
counterproductive,” he said. “They’re under tremendous political pressure at
the European Commission. It would damage the EU’s relations globally.” A
spokesperson for Johnson’s office declined to comment and referred back to
Wallace’s remarks.
— With
assistance by Alex Morales, and Albertina Torsoli
(Updates
with comments from British health minister, French finance minister)
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