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As soon as the plan was published, senior officials in Brussels realized that their boss had made a terrible mistake.
They understood the rationale for vaccine restrictions for vaccines sent from the European Union, but they could hardly believe that Ursula von der Leyen had missed the big picture and how the proposals would end up in Ireland.
The European Commission president was among those who insisted, over four years of Brexit negotiations, that controls at the Irish border could damage the island’s peace agreement. Less than a month after the trade agreement with the UK came into force, the EU was now the only one that threatened to put up barriers and unilaterally trigger emergency clauses in its deal with the UK
Photographer: Thierry Monasse / Laposte / Bloomberg
With rain of reproach, the authorities who meticulously negotiated these agreements and were barely consulted on von der Leyen’s decision realized that the EU’s moral authority was being shattered. The proposals quickly brought natural enemies into condemnation through the sectarian division in Northern Ireland, as well as the World Health Organization and the pharmaceutical industry.
The leading events up until the decision to control exports shows that von der Leyen’s team is suffering from immense pressure to correct its vaccination program. Starting the week under pressure from moving too slowly, they possibly made things much, much worse, by moving too fast.
In addition to the faltering vaccine program, which is likely to cost thousands of lives and billions in lost production, von der Leyen and his team did real damage to the EU and its self-image as a champion of open markets and the rule of law.
Question of Competence
Several officials lamented that their predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker, would never have let events run out of control in this way and wondered if Von der Leyen would be forced to bring back some of his advisers to stabilize the ship. One speculated that EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides is likely to become the scapegoat.
Even those close to Von der Leyen acknowledge that mistakes have been made. In a sign of lack of vision at stake, the authorities in Dublin only discovered the change on social media. Some fear that the furor may have caused permanent damage to complex arrangements designed to prevent the return of a hard border with Ireland, delivering a free blow to critics of the Brexit and EU deal.
An official in Brussels said that this is what happens when policymaking is done too quickly.
Von der Leyen spokesman Eric Mamer said it is an institutional reality that all decisions go through the president’s office and the college of commissioners. No decision is made without a college consensus, he added.
While Von der Leyen and his team struggled to contain the crisis, his thinking was shaped by a burning feeling of injustice in how AstraZeneca Plc managed its vaccine contract worth € 336 million ($ 408 million). Bloomberg spoke to officials from across the EU’s bureaucracy and national governments, many of whom expressed frustration, anger and sadness at the way the commission handled the situation. But they all signaled a strong belief that Astra’s CEO, Pascal Soriot, had committed them wrongly, with some even suggesting that Astra had breached its contract with the bloc.
An exercise that started as an expedition to bring transparency and gather evidence against the company quickly turned into chaotic confusion that some fear could lead to a commercial conflict in the middle of a pandemic.
‘Vaccine Hijacking’
Astra unleashed the crisis just over a week ago when it revealed that it was cutting the planned supply of vaccines to the EU by 60% to 31 million doses after a plant in Belgium was shut down. At the same time, deliveries to the UK have mostly met expectations, helping the British vaccination program to run ahead of the continent.
The most recent data show that the EU administered 2.6 doses per 100 people, compared with 12.5 doses in the UK and 8.8 in the USA. The news of the delays caused a shock of fear and outrage across the continent.
“Vaccine diplomacy has turned into vaccine hijacking,” said Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.
The Bloomberg CovidTracker -19: Over 90.8 million shots fired
Astra did use its EU supply chain to fulfill the contract with the United Kingdom. The UK vaccine task force said in December that part of Britain’s initial supply would come from Germany and the Netherlands, while German MEP Peter Liese said that even in the last few days, the UK vaccine was being bottled in Germany.
Vaccine production sites in Europe
The EU is determined to examine these movements more closely.
The Commission’s health services told Member States’ ambassadors this week that millions of vaccines have been sent from the EU in the past few months to countries like the United Kingdom, China, Israel and Canada, according to a diplomatic cable from the meeting seen by Bloomberg .
Some EU officials suspect that Astra was responsible for part of those shipments and should have withheld doses for European buyers. But they have no evidence to prove this because the data is not broken down by manufacturer.
Export controls
Getting that information was the goal on Monday, when the commission’s commercial service began drafting plans for a system that would require companies to simply signal their exports. It would also require companies to provide data on exports since December, clarifying how many doses Astra has already exported.
“We are not planning to impose an export ban or export restrictions,” EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis he told reporters on Tuesday. “It is a matter of transparency.”
This was also the moment when the Astra CEO decided to go on the offensive with an extensive interview for european newspapers including La Repubblica in Italy. He said the delays were in part due to the signing of EU supply contracts after the UK rejected speculation allegations.
“I am European, I have Europe at heart,” he said. “Therefore, we want to treat Europe in the best possible way. You know, we do this for no profit, remember? “
Photographer: Zach Gibson / Bloomberg
Read more: The Astra-EU struggle opens a new loophole in the global proposal to end the pandemic
On Tuesday night, pressure began to build on Germany, first, and then France, for a more rigorous approach.
On Wednesday morning, the tensions between the two sides were so strong that they couldn’t even agree if a phone call that night was happening.
Soriot’s interview infuriated officials and member states. Ambassadors were told at a briefing that day that the statements made by Astra’s CEO were shocking and do not comply with contractual obligations, said a diplomatic note seen by Bloomberg.
In a later press conference, health commissioner Stella Kyriakides rejected the arguments of the pharmacist, first come, first served. “This may work in the neighborhood butchers, but not in contracts,” she said.
At that point, von der Leyen decided that the commission needed to flex its muscles and the focus shifted to a stricter regime that would oblige companies with EU supply contracts not only to notify, but to obtain permission before exporting doses outside the bloc. .
Series of blunders
Still, EU commissioners, who normally make decisions collectively, were deeply divided over the adoption. Ultimately, the decision to take a stronger approach was made by von der Leyen and his cabinet.
And so a mad rush began to draft a plan ahead of Friday’s self-imposed deadline. The rush and pressure to deliver has led to a chain of serious errors.
Reporters were invited to a technical briefing on Thursday, even before a proposal was finalized, something the Commission almost never does.
On Friday morning, the EU published its contract with Astra, with confidential sections awkwardly edited in a way that meant the information was easily discovered by amateur online detectives. Dombrovskis and Kyriakides were sent to present the new regulations before several elements, including their decision-making clauses, were duly signed.
Although the crucial sections on Northern Ireland were a late addition to the document, all the relevant senior officials were involved and saw the plan before it aired. Final approval was the responsibility of von der Leyen’s office.
Michel Barnier, who led the Brexit negotiations, was not involved in the decision, said a person familiar with the process. Another said that other members of the Brexit task force were only called in at the end of the process and asked how to notify the UK of a measure that had already been agreed.
Photographer: Oliver Hoslet / AFP / Getty Images
When the mechanism finally hit the Internet, Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson were both outraged at the decision to inaugurate temporary vaccine export controls between the EU and Northern Ireland and expressed serious concerns.
Von der Leyen spoke quickly with Martin and Johnson over the phone to try to clear things up. The EU removed the regulation from its website and was forced to back down in a statement shortly before midnight. Von der Leyen followed up on a series of nightly tweets.
But the whole episode was red meat for Britain’s tough Brexit supporters, Tom Tugendhat, a moderate MP for the Johnson Conservative Party, said he exposed the EU’s attitudes and showed how little goodwill there is.
Although the EU’s executive arm does not trigger the controversial clause, it has not fully removed the threat, warning in its accompanying statement that it will consider using “all instruments” if vaccine export bans are circumvented.
An updated version of the plan published on Saturday morning does not include sections on Northern Ireland, but it still suggests suspicions that Astra could explore the Irish border as a back door to send EU Covid-19 shots to the UK
Manufacturers will be required to provide information on all vaccine doses distributed since December 1, including those sent to Northern Ireland.
And von der Leyen is left to put the pieces together after one of the most difficult episodes of his management.
Lucinda Creighton, a former European Affairs Minister in Dublin, gave a succinct assessment of the week’s events.
“Disaster,” she said in a post on Twitter.