LONDON, Jan. 30 (BBC) - The European Union has confirmed it is introducing export controls on coronavirus vaccines made in
the bloc, amid a row about delivery shortfalls. The so-called transparency mechanism gives EU countries
powers to deny authorisation for vaccine exports if the company making them hasn’t honoured existing contracts with the EU.
“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 controls will affect some 100 countries including the UK, the US, Canada and Australia - but many others, including poorer nations, are exempt.
The EU insists its controls are a temporary scheme, not an export ban.
But the World Health Organization is among those criticising the move, saying it could have a knock-on effect around the world.
The news comes with the EU in a very public dispute with drug-maker AstraZeneca over supplies, and under growing pressure over the slow pace of vaccine distribution.
Earlier, on Friday the Commission 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 to deliver to the bloc.
Vaccine firms will have to seek permission before supplying doses beyond the EU under the new rule. Its 27 member states will be able to vet those export applications.
In a separate analysis to the BBC by its Europe correspondent Gavin Lee describes how the “Politics of the vaccines in the European Union” works.
He said 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 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 could well affect British vaccine deliveries.
Pfizer currently despatches 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 EU agreement.