EU Commission to Propose Making it Easier to Block Covid-19 Vaccine Exports

 The European Commission is proposing to make it easier for European Union governments to block Covid-19 vaccine exports, a step that would likely escalate tensions with the U.K. and potentially damage ties with other countries.

The proposal will be debated at a meeting of EU leaders on Thursday and Friday where it looks likely to receive backing. However, the real test of its significance will be the guidance handed down by leaders on how broadly the export ban should be used.

Struggling with its own vaccine program, the EU's executive in late January allowed member states to stop vaccine exports from the bloc provided the move had backing from the European Commission.

However, the instrument has been used just once, when Italy blocked a batch of vaccines destined for Australia. Since late January, the EU has shipped 380 vaccine batches abroad, totalling more than 40 million vaccines, including more than 10 million to the U.K. despite the continued difficulties facing the bloc's vaccine campaign.

The commission has been contemplating barring exports to the U.K., whose own vaccine program has moved rapidly but which hasn't exported any vaccines. Senior U.K. and EU officials have been in talks in recent days on a possible compromise which would prevent British vaccine imports, which have so far mainly been of the Pfizer vaccine, being hit.

Those discussions have centered around ideas for sharing vaccine production from the Dutch-based plant Halix which is manufacturing vaccine ingredients for AstraZeneca. EU officials confirmed on Wednesday reports that millions of vaccines produced at the plant have been filled and finished at a site in Italy. No export request has yet been made for the vaccines.

Under the European Commission's proposal, EU governments would be able to take into account new criteria in deciding whether to stop an export. One would be whether the recipient country was also exporting vaccines or vaccine ingredients to the EU. Another would be how advanced the country was in vaccinating its own population or the epidemiological situation there in general.

EU officials said Wednesday the intention of the broader mechanism was to secure the EU's vaccine supply but they said it wouldn't allow EU member states to seize vaccine stocks produced by a company and that the aim is not to introduce sweeping new export bans.

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