New dispute breaks out over vaccine exports

Brussels under pressure from member states to secure jabs from outside bloc

In a fresh escalation of a previous dispute, Britain has rejected claims made by the European Council president, Charles Michel, that the United Kingdom is blocking vaccine exports.

Writing in his regular weekly blog, published on Tuesday, Michel claimed the UK had made an "outright ban" on exports of vaccines produced on its soil.

In response, Britain's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab wrote to the president on Tuesday night describing the suggestion as "completely false", and summoned the EU ambassador to complain, British media reported.

Michel promptly rebuffed Raab's letter on Tuesday evening, with a social media post saying there were "different ways of imposing bans or restrictions on vaccines/medicines", and added, "Glad if the UK reaction leads to more transparency and increased exports, to EU and third countries."

Earlier on Tuesday, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock, speaking at a vaccine supply chain summit in London, commented on the EU's vaccine export controls. "Vaccine supply chains are global, and the idea of one part of the world blocking exports is a mistake," he said, quoted by the Daily Telegraph.

The new row between the UK and the EU follows a previous dispute in January, when the EU invoked a clause in the Brexit deal to stop British vaccine exports to Northern Ireland, saying that British producers had not fulfilled their EU contracts.

Michel, in response to ongoing criticism of the EU vaccine strategy, depicted the EU in his original blog post as a "leading force in helping the world fight the pandemic".He said he was "shocked" at claims the bloc itself was engaging in "vaccine nationalism" by implementing export controls on jabs.

He wrote: "Here again, the facts do not lie. The United Kingdom and the United States have imposed an outright ban on the export of vaccines or vaccine components produced on their territory. But the European Union ...never stopped exporting."

Online news site euobserver.com noted that the EU recently endorsed Italy's blockade of a vaccine shipment to Australia. But in his blog, Michel said this was not an export ban, so much as a bid "to prevent companies from which we have ordered and pre-financed doses from exporting them to other advanced countries when they have not delivered to us what was promised".

He added that the EU had put aside 2.7 billion euro ($3.2 billion) for the COVAX program for vaccines for poor countries on the EU's eastern edges and for nations in Latin America and Africa.

The EU has been criticized by some member states, who have sought to buy vaccines from Russia and China. Broadcaster Deutsche Welle noted that Austria and Denmark said last week they will secure doses for future strains from Israel, and that Italy has defied EU warnings in a deal to manufacture Russia's vaccine at home. Hungary and Slovakia earlier authorized imports of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine.