EU Chief von der Leyen issues Covid vaccine export warning at virtual EU summit

Ursula von der Leyen has reassured EU leaders she will ban the export of coronavirus vaccines if suppliers such as AstraZeneca fail to deliver again, as she continues to come under pressure after the failure of EU policies around the highly sought after vaccinations.

The European Commission President’s pledge at a virtual summit came as leaders issued a statement promising to “accelerate the provision of vaccines”, with only 8% of the adult population having been vaccinated compared with 27% of adults in the UK.

“If companies don’t fulfil their contractual obligations, yet do export, the commission may decide to make a move under the export regime,” Von der Leyen told the heads of state and government during the private meeting, according to sources.

Speaking at the post-summit press conference, Von der Leyen said: “We want to see who is exporting where and I was very clear from the very start that is not directed against any kind of country but is focused on the question: does the company that is exporting a vaccine produced in Europe honour the contract in the European Union?"

“If we look at the pattern the vast majority of exports is done by BioNTech/Pfizer of 95% approximately. The rest by Moderna. Both of them are honouring their contract so that is fine with us. We are in discussions with AstraZeneca where there is room for improvement where the fulfilment of the contract is concerned, so here we have a very close eye on what is going on.”

The remarks on Thursday evening followed a defence by AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, of his company’s record to a joint committee of the European parliament where he was grilled over a heavy shortfall in the 120 million expected deliveries this quarter.

He told MEPs, who had accused him of failing the EU while delivering to Britain, that the UK government had heavily funded the development of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, for which the government had a 100 million order.

Soriot said the “overwhelming” majority of doses made in its Belgian and Dutch production facilities “remained in the EU” despite the suspicion within the commission that doses made for member states had leaked over to the UK.

“I am disappointed that lower than expected output in our dedicated European supply chain has affected our ability to deliver, but I want to reassure you that we are ramping up production and doing everything we can to deliver 40 million doses in the first quarter of 2021 enabling vaccination of 10% of the EU population,” Soriot said.

“The supply chain serving the UK is geared to supply 65 million people who live in the UK. The European community has 450 million people I believe. Even if we took the entire supply of the UK it would not make a huge difference to the European community.”

Following the leaders’ summit, the EU issued a statement emphasising the determination to speed up the roll-out of vaccines amid the heavy criticism. “We need to urgently accelerate the authorisation, production and distribution of vaccines, as well as vaccination,” they said.

In a reference to the row with AstraZeneca, whose deliveries have been smaller than expected due to production problems, the statement added that “companies must ensure predictability of their vaccine production and respect contractual delivery deadlines”.

Von der Leyen was also put under pressure from southern European countries and the Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, to speed up work on a common vaccination certificate that might in time be used as a “passport” to facilitate travel.

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