BRUSSELS – The European Union has exported 34 million doses of coronavirus vaccines in recent weeks to dozens of countries, despite facing shortages at home that contributed to the vaccine’s launch, lagging far behind advances in the United States, Britain and Israel .
The EU has suffered fierce criticism for “vaccine nationalism” and protectionism, which intensified last week when Italy blocked a small dose shipment to Australia, intensifying a tug of war against badly needed injections.
But export figures, recorded in detailed confidential documents seen by The New York Times, show that the European Union, far from being protectionist, has in fact been a vaccine exporter.
That news, EU officials in particular admitted, would outrage European citizens in 27 countries that are still waiting for their shots as they watch Americans, British, Israelis and others rush past them to resume a safer and more normal public life, and activities economic.
As it stands, only 6.5 percent of people in the European Union have been inoculated, compared with almost 58 percent of Israelis who have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. The figure is 33% for people in Britain and 18% for the United States, according to data collected by OurWorldInData.
The revelation of the extent of EU exports has been hotly debated in the corridors of the European Commission, the executive arm of the bloc, which is at the heart of vaccine procurement and has suffered the biggest political blow to its not-so-surprising implementation.
But several senior EU officials have argued that revealing the immense export efforts that are keeping countries around the world vaccinated and helping the world economy restart could help Europe’s reputation after last week’s dispute.
Italy managed to block shipments to Australia last week under a new emergency rule that allows any member of the EU to stop exports of vaccines produced in the bloc.
Italy’s decision was a bold move, albeit symbolic, to pressure the bloc to make more demands on pharmaceutical companies. (Companies have contracts with countries around the world, but business details are often secret, making it difficult to know which deliveries have been promised to several countries.)
The issue of vaccine production and exports has created bitter precipitation between the European Union and Britain, amid accusations that the EU wants to deprive the country of vaccine doses out of spite, in part because Britain is faring much better with its inoculation campaign after leaving the block this year. In fact, export data shows that Britain is the largest importer of doses produced in the EU
The tensions culminated in a diplomatic feud on Wednesday after a senior EU official accused the United States and Britain of instituting a “total ban” on exports.
The British government vehemently denied the charge. But practically speaking, Britain is not exporting vaccines authorized for use at home, although it said it would be prepared to overdose neighboring Ireland – after Britain’s own vaccination efforts were made.
A British government official said the location where vaccines produced in the UK are distributed is an issue governed by contracts between the companies and the government.
The United States has also maintained doses produced domestically.
A spokesman for Moderna, for example, said that all of the company’s supplies made in the United States were purchased by the government. President Biden promised last week that all adults in the United States would have at least one dose of vaccine offered to them by May.
The bloc was weeks behind the United States and Britain in closing deals with pharmaceutical companies last year and was criticized for acting too slowly. But it secured a broad portfolio of vaccines on favorable terms on behalf of its members, which guaranteed countries relatively quick access to immunization that most would not have dreamed of if they were acting alone.
Then, shortly after starting its implementation in late December, the bloc began to suffer supply shocks. First, Pfizer said it was cutting deliveries to update its facilities in Belgium. Then AstraZeneca, which has production facilities in the EU and the UK, told the bloc that it would deliver only 31 million of the 80 million doses promised in the first quarter of this year.
Moderna, whose vaccine was also approved for use by the bloc, also had some supply problems. Many EU countries have also done a terrible job of supplying the vaccines they have to their citizens due to poor organization and logistics.
Of the 34 million doses of vaccines made at EU-based facilities that were exported between February 1 and March 9, more than nine million doses went to Britain, according to internal documents.
The second largest recipient of vaccines made in the EU was Canada, which received almost four million doses last month, while the third largest was Mexico, which received 3.1 million doses of vaccine.
The EU has also sent 954,000 vaccines to the United States since the beginning of February.
The contradictions of being a major global vaccine producer, while trying to vaccinate its own people, became painfully clear in the EU earlier this year.
In late January, the European Union approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for use in its 27 countries, but hopes that it would increase its slow implementation of immunization were quickly dashed: the company revealed major production problems and reduced delivery promises to the first. quarter of the year.
European officials were irritated, saying the company favored the UK by maintaining a stable supply to Britain while drastically cutting doses to the EU. to implement the export control rule.
Each pharmaceutical company that produces in the EU would need to apply for permission to send bottles abroad. The Commission, accused of vaccine nationalism, said the policy was to force pharmaceutical companies to be transparent and fully comply with their contracts with the EU, rather than misleading the bloc – where they operated – to serve other global customers.
Italy was the first country to invoke the export control rule when it acted last week, and so far it is the only one to do so. The rule is that the rule will remain in force until the end of March.
Experts say the European Union was smart not to restrict exports to favor its own population, even if that message is not popular in the short term among exasperated citizens.
On the one hand, the deeply globalized nature of supply chains for raw materials for vaccine production means that the EU, which imports components from 83 producers around the world to make vaccines, is better off if it does not start a trade war with vaccines.
And politically speaking, improving supply in the second quarter of this year means that EU national governments will need to stop blaming the European Commission for their own shortcomings in delivering vaccines quickly at home, said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior member of German Marshall’s. Fund and the Peterson Institute in Brussels.
“For governments, it has always been convenient to say that their hands are tied because they do not have enough vaccines because of the European Commission,” said Kirkegaard.
Recent data showed that about 40 percent of doses purchased by the EU and distributed to member states were languishing in storage, partly due to poor logistics.
“It will become increasingly difficult to keep pointing the finger at Brussels and say that they are not doing enough,” added Kirkegaard.
But for now, implementation in the bloc has been so bad that member states have been tempted by black market offers for extra doses, and several are using vaccines not yet authorized in the bloc, including Sputnik V. from Russia.
Hopes that supply problems could be eased in the second quarter of this year depend in large part on increasing production at AstraZeneca and a robust delivery plan by Johnson & Johnson, whose Covid-19 vaccine must be authorized by the regulator of the EU on Thursday.
However, there are concerns that Johnson & Johnson may also be reducing the offer to the bloc, prompting the United States government to apply for a loan of 10 million doses.
US and European Union officials said the request was denied.
Noah Weiland contributed reporting from Washington and Rebecca Robbins from Bellingham, Wash.