Is the EU Doing
Enough to Fight Coronavirus Globally?
JUDY DEMPSEY
Globally, EU assistance has been slow to materialize.
Supporting countries in dire need of coronavirus vaccines—through both the
provision of vaccines and the sharing of patents—would project the union's soft
power capacity.
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April 29, 2021
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ALLISON
CARRAGHER VISITING SCHOLAR AT CARNEGIE EUROPE
No, but not for lack of trying. Consider EU
vaccination efforts to date.
Europe has invested billions to
support vaccine development. The EU largely permitted exports
of locally-manufactured vaccines, while the U.S. and UK blocked them. The
European Commission was a founding member of the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access
(COVAX) Facility, to which Team Europe is a top contributor. Closer
to home, the EU gave €70 million ($85 million) to the six Western Balkan EU
aspirants so that they could purchase vaccines.
But EU assistance has been slow to materialize. On
March 28, three months after the EU rollout launched, COVAX deliveries finally
came through and Kosovo became the last country in Europe to start vaccinating.
EU-procured vaccines aren’t expected there until May.
The EU’s main miscalculation was believing that funding
equals vaccines. It’s not such a simple equation. The union learned this lesson
the hard way, when AstraZeneca failed to deliver on
contracts despite the EU’s investment and ability to pay. AstraZeneca cited
manufacturing issues, which have also plagued other producers.
Patent protections and the specter of a big-pharma
monopoly is another red herring.
There’s no quick fix or easy buy. To do more, the EU
should shift its focus to scaling up manufacturing
capacity, sharing know-how, and streamlining supply chains.
LUKE COOPER CONSULTANT AND ASSOCIATE RESEARCHER AT LSE IDEAS, THE
FOREIGN POLICY THINK TANK OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
The unevenness in vaccine access globally illustrates
a democratic conundrum. On the one hand, states have to respond to the demands
of their populations for mass vaccination. On the other, procurement capacity is
unequal, and a handful of companies have monopolized manufacturing supply,
limiting the scale of production.
Human security offers a way to overcome these
contradictions. It recognizes that the national security of states and the
demand for protection from the crisis requires an international response.
Specifically, new vaccine-resistant variants may emerge unless vaccines are
rapidly distributed across the world.
Indeed, there is simply no practical exit route from
the pandemic in isolation. The EU backed a human security agenda in its 2016 Global Strategy.
The emerging consensus around the need for an interventionist economic
policy—typified by the recent Dutch-Spanish paper—needs
to be firmly connected to this approach or risk a swift degeneration into a
“first wordlist” Euro-nationalism.
Time is of the essence. The EU should back the World Health Organization’s
COVID-19 Technology Access Pool and its agenda without further
equivocation: suspend vaccine patents, share the technology, and develop a
global manufacturing strategy based on partnerships between the public and
private sectors for the common good.
OLIVER DELLA
COSTA STUENKEL ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS AT THE FUNDAÇÃO GETULIO VARGAS (FGV), SÃO PAULO
Seen from Latin America, neither the United States nor
the EU have been able to counter Beijing's highly effective vaccine diplomacy
drive, assuring that China is regarded as the most proactive player combating
the pandemic.
Skepticism with regard to Chinese vaccines is common
and most Latin Americans would prefer to receive a Western alternative, but
while the region has received some Western aid and vaccines, including Pfizer
doses in Chile and AstraZeneca doses via the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access
(COVAX) Facility in several countries, Beijing's rollout has been unmatched.
Around 85 percent of all coronavirus shots
administered in Brazil so far are CoronaVac vaccines, developed by
Beijing-based company Sinovac. Elsewhere in the region, the Sinopharm vaccine
has been the most commonly distributed.
The dominant perception remains that both the United
States and Europe are busy focusing on their internal challenges, while China
helped when many of its own citizens have not yet been vaccinated.
In Brazil, in particular the United States’ and the
EU's promise to quickly aid India—including Biden's decision to lift a U.S. ban
on exporting raw materials to produce vaccines—but failure to do the same in
response to the collapse of public health systems in Latin America consolidates
the perception that the region is being left behind.
CHIPO DENDERE ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF AFRICANA STUDIES AT WELLESLEY
COLLEGE, USA
It is nearly impossible to imagine that the world
could return to normal if countries in the global South do not get equal access
to coronavirus vaccinations. More than five months ago, India and South Africa
proposed a temporary waiver on coronavirus patents to increase production of
the vaccine outside western countries.
However, while the EU continues say that they are
committed to helping developing countries, a small but influential group of
European nations, plus the United Kingdom and Switzerland, continue to favor
restricting access to patents. This
decision is good for big European pharmaceutical companies, but it is terrible
for global health.
Wealthy nations have a moral responsibility to do more
to help poorer countries. While some of the financial help that
has been given to African countries is welcome, it is not enough if countries
cannot secure vaccinations. There are a billion people in India that are yet to
be vaccinated. If just 1 percent of that population is forced to travel abroad
in search of medical treatment, the global community will face another
outbreak, and this time we might not be able to contain it.
MAMANE BELLO
GARBA HIMA RESEARCHER AT THE LABORATORY OF STUDIES
AND RESEARCH ON ECONOMIC EMERGENCE (LAEREE) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ABDOU
MOUMOUNI, NIGER
The EU’s international role in helping to fight
coronavirus is not enough, particularly with regard to the South. It is true
that the coronavirus pandemic has created fear and led to disorganized
responses in EU member states and elsewhere, but the focus on helping weak
states should not be absent and this should not be left to other new powers.
One could reasonably think that the EU pharmaceutical
companies have too much power and have no results-based agreement with the EU or
they are driven by a formula “huge profit first.”
Rethinking the conditions of funding pharmaceutical
companies and reducing the bureaucratic procedures could be helpful in dealing
with the coronavirus pandemic. After all, being a leader is a process of
self-assessment and listening to how others assess you.
SHADA ISLAM INDEPENDENT EU COMMENTATOR AND MANAGING DIRECTOR OF
NEW HORIZONS PROJECT, BRUSSELS
The EU is struggling hard to maintain its reputation
as a generous global actor that is responsive to the needs of its partners—when
they are really in desperate need. Yes, the EU and the United States are
finally sending much-needed oxygen, medicines, and vaccines to India. In
ordinary times one could say “better late than never.” But this time, that
delay has cost thousands of lives. So, neither the EU nor the United States
have lived up to their much-hyped special relationship with India. The failure
to do so will be remembered by Indians and many others.
There is also the very important question of responding
quickly to repeated demands from India and South Africa—now joined by about 80
other countries as well as NGOs—to back a temporary patent waiver for
coronavirus vaccines that would allow countries to manufacture treatments
locally and accelerate the global vaccination effort.
Big Pharma arguments that sharing technology with
other nations will help Russia and China are morally wrong. It is clear that
vaccine production has to be ramped up to make sure that we overcome the virus.
This is only possible through a sharing of patents and a transfer of
technology. We are in a global emergency that requires a collaborative
international effort. Playing geopolitical competition in these challenging
times is unacceptable.
JACOB
KIRKEGAARD SENIOR FELLOW AT THE PETERSON INSTITUTE
FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
EU-based firms have developed two of the soon
three—BioNTech/Pfizer, Moderna, and CureVac—approved mRNA vaccines, plus the
Johnson & Johnson/Jannsen adenovirus vaccine, and have been exporting a
rapidly increasing number of vaccine doses.
On April 23, European Commission President Ursula von
der Leyen announced the EU had exported 155 million doses to
eighty-seven different countries since December 2020. In the same
period, the EU-27, plus Norway and Iceland, received around 180 million doses.
This contrasts with U.S. vaccine exports of zero and
majority net imports of vaccines by the UK, despite both countries having
considerably higher domestic vaccination rates. The EU alone among developed
nations has carried its weight in the global fight against coronavirus.
The EU’s vaccination program has directly felt the
adverse impact of the complexity of rapid mass production of coronavirus
vaccines. This issue, in addition to the mutating nature of the coronavirus
almost certainly requiring future booster shots of adjusted vaccines, means
that proposals to “give away vaccine patents” to help poorer countries will
fail. Developing countries will not be able to set up material new production
capacity for coronavirus vaccines of especially mRNA, but also other European-developed
vaccines in the next twenty-four months.
If the EU wants to accelerate the global coronavirus
vaccination drive in the short term, it must instead be through donated
vaccines produced at existing production facilities.
BIDZINA
LEBANIDZE SENIOR ANALYST AT THE GEORGIAN INSTITUTE OF POLITICS,
TBILISI
While it's understandable that EU member states
prioritize the vaccination of their own citizens, recent virus mutations and
the surge in infection numbers in India and elsewhere show that the coronavirus
is a global problem that requires a coordinated response.
For this to happen and for the vaccination process to
accelerate globally, the EU needs to force the big pharma companies to find
creative solutions to the current supply shortages, possibly including a
compulsory licensing and a temporary waiver of Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which would fall short of lifting patents
on vaccines.
The global vaccination process is also developing into
a geopolitical campaign waged by China and Russia to increase their influence
globally. To counteract this trend, the EU needs to leave its own footprint in
the global vaccination race. Therefore, while the COVID-19 Vaccine Global
Access (COVAX) Facility initially proved as a useful instrument, the EU also
needs to develop its own, more potent European platform which can distribute
vaccines globally under the EU flag.
Ending a deadly pandemic globally will not only save
the European economy from collapse, but also provide a once in a generation
opportunity for the EU to establish itself as one of the world’s leading (soft)
powers.
DENIS MACSHANE AUTHOR AND UK’S FORMER MINISTER FOR EUROPE
Like on defense and foreign policy, the EU’s ability
to project itself as a world player on combatting the pandemic is stronger on
verbal ambition than delivery realities.
Unlike the United States, which by June 2020 was using
its Defense Production Act and its Biomedical Advanced Research and
Developmental Authority (BARDA) agency to fund research, open new production
facilities, and order hundreds of millions of doses, the EU was stuttering as
member state governments went their own way.
Health is not an EU competence. It is difficult to
create a common EU policy with leaders all handling the pandemic in different
ways.
How can the EU help India’s Prime Minister Narendra
Modi or Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro when both leaders permit super-spreading
events that kill their people?
The EU has been generous in giving money to the World
Health Organization’s COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) Facility, but more
pressure needs to be exercised to remove patent protection from coronavirus drugs.
What might help is a coronavirus Vaccine Investment
and Trade Agreement (CVITA). But are the EU’s 27 governments, each handling the
pandemic in its own way, ready to sink differences and allow the EU to create a
Single Pandemic Policy and Authority?
MARY C. MURPHY JEAN MONNET CHAIR IN EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND LECTURER
IN THE DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS AT THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK
As coronavirus vaccination programs roll out and ramp
up across Europe, national lockdowns are easing and there are signs that life
across the continent is slowly returning to a form of pre-pandemic normality.
The EU’s management of the vaccination program,
however, has not cast the union in a positive light. In Ireland, where support
for the EU is consistently high—84 percent—just 45 percent have confidence in
the EU’s vaccines strategy according to the 2021 European Movement
Ireland/RedC poll.
It is clear that the EU’s limited capacity to respond
quickly, effectively, and efficiently to the early stages of the pandemic has
done little to reassure its own citizens. However, as vaccines become
increasingly available, there is an opportunity for the EU not just to address
and correct earlier domestic failings, but also to project and assert an
influential global role.
Assisting countries in dire need of vaccines—through
both the provision of vaccines and the sharing of patents—would project the
EU’s soft power capacity. It would be a demonstrable act of solidarity with
those countries experiencing the worst horrors of the pandemic. It also has the
potential to rehabilitate Europeans’ views of how the EU—in the face of an
unprecedented public health crisis—can ultimately be a force for global good.
RAÚL STOLK MANAGING DIRECTOR OF CARACAS CHRONICLES
The Caracas Chronicles’ wider research on the
perception that Venezuelans have on the European Union showed that although
some humanitarian projects are recognized by well-informed groups, the general
population has little awareness of the EU as a global influence that may impact
their lives.
There’s little visibility on what the EU is doing
globally to fight the pandemic, and locally, most of the EU’s efforts have been
focused on broader aspects of the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis.
As Feliciano Reyna, a recognized human rights
activist, explains: “The EU hasn’t accomplished a common practice to provide
the needed help. I’m not aware of changes in this matter during the pandemic.
Funding has been mobilized for the humanitarian emergency, not for the
coronavirus pandemic.”
Among the experts Caracas Chronicles consulted,
there’s a consensus that the EU’s response to the coronavirus pandemic was
delayed and that there was a lack of coordination evidenced by the diverse
outcomes in EU member states.
KHALIL SHIKAKI PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND
DIRECTOR OF THE PALESTINIAN CENTER FOR POLICY AND SURVEY RESEARCH, PALESTINE
In managing the international system, major powers
play a significant role. They write the rules by which the rest of world lives.
But these rules are challenged when they are seen as unfair.
The current pandemic has destroyed livelihoods and
lives of millions. As the world finally finds a way to combat the current
pandemic, the major powers find themselves incapable of effectively dealing
with such an unprecedented challenge.
The most vital interest of the rich and strong
dictates that they do what they can to save their own population; that others,
in this case, the poor and weak, suffer what they must. The EU should not allow
this unethical rule to dominate the international system in the midst of a
horrible pandemic.
As the emergency unfolds, it is time for the EU to
take the lead in loosening the patent regime so that millions of human beings
in developing countries can be saved and their economies restored.
Sharing what they have with others can create good
will and reduce the impulse to challenge the rules set by the strong. All
benefit when the global market resumes normalcy.
RAFAEL
VILASANJUANDIRECTOR OF POLICY
& GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT AT ISGLOBAL BARCELONA INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL HEALTH
Vaccines are the front-line strategy to stop the
pandemic. The initial decision by the EU was to assure equity within the
European space, so that citizens in Budapest and Berlin would receive the
vaccine within the same time frame. The aim was to assure that transit, trade,
and tourism would be kept open, as a common space.
When the first billion doses will have been delivered
worldwide, more than 90 percent will have covered just 10 percent of the
population. Meanwhile, only 50 million doses delivered by the COVID-19 Vaccine
Global Access (COVAX) Facility by the end of April reached the lowest economies
of the world.
Vaccines are lacking. The EU should urgently address
three main issues. First, use existing flexibilities in the World Trade
Organization (WTO) to increase production and transfer knowledge. Second, fund
COVAX to provide subsidized vaccines. And third, share part of the doses
bought, without waiting for the entire EU population to be vaccinated.
If
not, threats may undermine the EU’s achievements, as member states will be
required to keep the borders closed with countries where citizens are not being
vaccinated. And even more dangerously, these countries might see the emergence
of variants of the virus, against which the existing vaccines will not be
effective.
