Corona Virus: EU confirms new vaccine export controls

The European Union has confirmed it is introducing export controls on corona virus vaccines made in the bloc, amid a row about delivery shortfalls.

“The protection and safety of our citizens is a priority and the challenges we now face left us with no choice but to act,” the European Commission said.

The EU is in a very public dispute with drug-maker AstraZeneca over supplies.

The bloc is under growing pressure over the slow pace of vaccine distribution.

The Commission earlier made public a confidential contract with AstraZeneca, the UK-Swedish company behind the Oxford vaccine, to bolster its argument that the firm has been failing to fulfil its promises.

Under the new rule, vaccine firms will have to seek permission before supplying doses beyond the EU. The EU member states will be able to vet those export applications.

Vaccines produced by Pfizer in Belgium are currently being exported to the UK, and the EU insists that some of the AstraZeneca vaccine produced in England is destined under contract for EU citizens.

The EU is also in a supply dispute with Pfizer, which is set to fall short of the contracted vaccine volume for the EU by the end of March. Pfizer says the reason for that is the urgent expansion of its facility in Puurs, Belgium.

AstraZeneca’s shortfall to the EU is expected to be about 60% in the first quarter of 2021.

The EU is allowing exemptions from the export control regime, including: vaccine donations to Covax, the global scheme to help poorer countries, and exports to Switzerland, countries in the western Balkans, Norway and North Africa. But the UK will not be exempted.

Explaining the export measures, EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides told a news conference they would ensure that all EU citizens had access to vaccines, and that all parties played by the rules.

“This approach is built on trust, transparency and responsibility,” she said.

“Commitments need to be kept, and agreements are binding. Advance purchase agreements need to be respected.

“Today, we have developed a system which will allow us to know whether vaccines are being exported from the EU. This increased transparency will also come with a responsibility for the EU to authorise, with our member states, these vaccine exports.”

Earlier this week the EU indicated this proposal was coming down the track. It would be a “notification system” officials said. Nothing more than a way of showing transparency.

That has now turned into an export control policy, partly because of Germany’s insistence that EU governments should be the ones to decide whether EU-based companies can export vaccines elsewhere.

EU officials tell me that it’s also been partly triggered by the deep suspicion of the “vague justification” given by AstraZeneca this week, when their chief executive insisted that the production problem was down to “lower productivity” at its Belgian plant.

This new system of export control is expected to become a reality in a month’s time, and could well affect British vaccine deliveries.

Pfizer currently dispatches doses from the Puurs site here to the UK. In future, Pfizer would have to fill in an export form and wait up to 48 hours for their export request to be accepted or rejected by the Belgian government. That decision would be based on whether the company could prove that taking that batch of vaccine to the UK would not affect the existing EU agreement.

The EU has contracted to receive the following vaccine doses:

• AstraZeneca – 400m
• Sanofi-GSK – 300m
• Johnson and Johnson – 400m
• Pfizer-BioNTech – 600m
• CureVac – 405m
• Moderna – 160m

EU officials say AstraZeneca should be making up shortfalls, caused by production problems at two plants in the EU, by using product from UK facilities.