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EU, Britain Battle Over Vaccine Supplies

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

(Worthy News) – European Union leaders agreed to toughen export controls of coronavirus vaccines amid a row with Britain over deliveries. At an online summit attended by U.S. President Joe Biden, they also stressed the importance of a reliable global supply chain of COVID-19 jabs.

Their agreements came despite concerns among critical scientists and doctors about reports of people suffering side effects of vaccines, such as blood clotting and even death in some cases.

The EU representatives met virtually to avoid coronavirus infections as they tried to figure out how to vaccinate most of the EU’s nearly 450 million people against COVID-19.

However, the EU’s Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, complained that Britain fell short in delivering coronavirus jabs to the European Union. “Just since the introduction of the export authorization system, some 10 million doses have been exported from the EU to the UK. And zero dozes have been exported from the UK to e EU,” he said.

Brussels has especially condemned Anglo-Swedish manufacturer AstraZeneca. It wants the company to “catch up” on deliveries to the EU before exporting doses elsewhere.

At the summit, EU leaders also agreed to extend export controls on jabs produced within the Union. The 27-nation bloc has been accused by Britain and the World Health Organization of so-called “vaccine nationalism.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned the EU not to impose blockades. “I don’t think that blockades of either vaccine or of medicines, or of ingredients for vaccines are sensible, and I think the long-term damage done by blockades can be very considerable,” he told lawmakers.

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Those sentiments were echoed by the former president of the EU’s executive European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker. “This could create a major reputation damage to the European Union. We are not in war, and we are not enemies, we are allies,” he explained ahead of the summit.

The tensions underscore frustration in Europe about a lack of vaccines as several member states on the continent saw the deadliest outbreaks of the pandemic, with Italy reporting more than 106,000 deaths, France 93,000, Germany 75,000, and Spain 73,000 coronavirus deaths. Recent figures show just 12.9 doses of vaccine have been administered per 100 people in the EU compared with 44.7 in Britain and 37.2 in the United States.

There has been anger within the EU that the United States and Britain are not participating in vaccine distribution, for instance, to poorer nations.

European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said she could discuss vaccine distribution with US President Joe Biden during the summit. “We agreed that we have a strong interest in working together to keep global supply chains functioning. The United States is an important and valued partner of the European Union,” she explained to reporters.

For now, EU states and other nations still face vaccine shortages. EU member state Hungary has begun rolling out Chinese and Russian vaccines besides those approved by the EU. But despite these efforts, official statistics show that Hungary has the world’s highest coronavirus death rate per capita. Officials say more than 19,000 people died of or with COVID-19 in a population of some 10 million people.