The European Commission’s president has warned that the EU is ready to introduce emergency controls on Covid-19 vaccine production and distribution if needed to deal with the “crisis of the century”. Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc was considering “all options” to ensure that “Europeans are vaccinated as soon as possible”, in a sign of concern that the EU has exported jabs to the UK and US but receives none from them.
The commission president warned specifically that Brussels was ready to halt exports of vaccines to countries that did not reciprocate in allowing life-saving jabs to flow to the EU. “If the situation does not change, we will have to reflect on how to make exports to vaccine-producing countries dependent on their level of openness,” she said.
While von der Leyen did not mention the UK directly, Brussels has repeatedly complained about the lack of shipments of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine from Britain. The EU has emerged as one the biggest Covid-19 vaccine production hubs with companies including US firms Pfizer and Moderna manufacturing much of their international supply in the bloc. The EU said it had shipped 41m jabs to 31 high- and middle-income countries covered by its existing export control regime between January 30 and March 16. That included 10m to the UK — the biggest export destination — and almost 1m to the US.
Both countries have made much quicker starts to their vaccine rollouts than the EU, which has grappled with limited supplies and logistical failings in member states.