The fight against vaccine exports accelerates decline in EU-UK relations

The UK vaccination campaign has given at least one injection to almost half of the adults in the country, in contrast to the EU’s faltering implementation so far.

Britain left the bloc on January 31 of last year and started a new economic relationship earlier this year based on a last-minute trade agreement that defined a long-term business relationship.

At the time, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the deal marked “a resolution to the old, tired and uncomfortable issue of Britain’s political relations with Europe, which has plagued our postwar history”. He said the UK would be “the best friend and ally the EU could have”.

So far, it hasn’t worked out that way.

The relationship “is very dysfunctional and the open channels for fixing things are broken,” said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director of Eurasia Group, a consulting firm.

The actions of the UK and the EU have shaken confidence in a part of the divorce treaty aimed at avoiding a border on the island of Ireland after Brexit. Britain has refused to grant the EU envoy in London full diplomatic status, resulting in the blocking of Britain’s ambassador to Brussels. Meanwhile, trade between the UK and European nations has fallen dramatically because of the pandemic and the new barriers to trade introduced this year for the first time in nearly five decades.

The pandemic ignited the teething pains expected in this new relationship. Britain authorized and distributed its vaccines faster than European nations, which left the EU to handle purchases on their behalf. The United Kingdom also managed to quickly close contracts for the supply of vaccines.

Some leading European politicians and health regulators questioned whether a vaccine developed and launched in the UK by AstraZeneca PLC and the University of Oxford was effective for older people. Since then, the data has confirmed that it has. After a drop in the supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the EU, several European governments have suspended the use of the vaccine for fear that it could cause blood clots.

Pro-Brexit activists pointed to the EU’s vaccine problems as an example of why Britain was right to leave the bloc.

“Only this week have we seen what happens when you have an anti-scientific, anti-business and anti-technology culture in Brussels, married to your appalling bureaucracy in your insane decisions about the AstraZeneca vaccine warnings,” said Dominic Cummings, former chief of staff for Mr. Johnson, said Wednesday.

The EU introduced a mechanism in late January that allowed member states to prevent doses of the vaccine from being exported outside the bloc. Since then, only one export batch has been stopped.

The UK government has not banned the export of vaccines. But, according to the contracts it signed with vaccine suppliers, it signed first-come-first-date agreements that reinforced its vaccination campaign. Last week, the United Kingdom summoned an EU diplomat in response to accusations by European Council President Charles Michel that Britain had a “total ban” on exports.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday that the EU could tighten its export ban to stop sending vaccines to countries that do not sell vaccines to the bloc and are ahead in vaccination campaigns. As Britain has by far been the main recipient of vaccination – with 10 million doses sold to the UK since the end of January – Mrs von der Leyen said Britain is a country she wants to see reciprocity.

The EU has exported 40 million doses of vaccines since January, making the bloc the largest global vaccine exporter, despite its difficulties in obtaining and delivering vaccines.

Tensions over vaccines come in a context of friction between London and Brussels over the implementation of the Brexit Agreement – and in particular the so-called Northern Ireland protocol, a complicated arrangement that allows the Northern Ireland region of the United Kingdom to maintain a border with the Republic of Ireland, which is a member of the EU. The agreement stipulates that the United Kingdom must carry out customs checks on products going from the British continent to Northern Ireland to ensure that they comply with EU standards.

Britain said it would unilaterally delay full implementation of the checks, which were scheduled to begin next month. On Monday, the EU’s executive body said it was filing a lawsuit against the decision. The move could result in penalties imposed by the bloc’s higher court and, once the post-Brexit trade agreement is fully ratified, retaliatory measures against the UK

British officials believe the EU is trying to protect its single market at the risk of undermining the peace process in Ireland. Earlier this year, the EU commission published a plan to ban the export of vaccines to Northern Ireland. The decision was never implemented, but it intensified opposition between pro-UK unionists to the Brexit deal in Northern Ireland.

The Biden government pressured Brussels and London to tread carefully in Ireland. “We continue to encourage the European Union and the UK government to prioritize pragmatic solutions to safeguard and advance the hard-won peace in Northern Ireland,” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Senior British government officials, such as David Frost, who negotiated the Brexit deal and now lead the EU government’s strategy, also accused the EU of unwillingness towards Britain because of its departure.

The dispute over the diplomatic status of the EU ambassador in London caused communications between the top officials in Brussels and the UK to be cut off, people on both sides said.

Meanwhile, with new obstacles to trade emerging this year, there has been a sharp drop in trade between the two sides, although it is unclear how much of this is related to the pandemic and stockpiling of importers and exporters last year. UK data show that British goods exports to the EU fell 41% in January compared to the previous month, and imports 56% compared to the previous year.

—Jason Douglas in London contributed to this article.

Write to Max Colchester at [email protected] and Laurence Norman at [email protected]