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As soon as the plan was published, senior officials in Brussels could see that their boss had made a terrible mistake.
They understood the reason for the vaccine restrictions on shots fired from the European Union, but they could hardly believe that Ursula von der Leyen had missed the big picture and how the proposals would land in Ireland.
The President of the European Commission was among those who insisted, over four years of Brexit negotiations, that Irish border controls could jeopardize the settlement of the island’s peace. Less than a month after the entry into force of the trade agreement with the United Kingdom, the EU was now threatening to put up barriers and unilaterally launch emergency clauses in its agreement with the United Kingdom.
Photographer: Thierry Monasse / Laposte / Bloomberg
As the disgrace fell, officials who carefully negotiated those agreements and were barely consulted on von der Leyen’s decision felt that the EU’s moral authority was being destroyed. The proposals quickly united in condemning the natural enemies of the sectarian division in Northern Ireland, as well as the World Health Organization and the pharmaceutical industry.
The leading events up to the decision to control exports shows that von der Leyen’s team is bowing under immense pressure to set its own vaccination schedule. Starting the week under fire because they were moving too slowly, they got worse, much worse, moving too fast.
In addition to the hesitant vaccination program, which is likely to cost thousands of lives and billions of lost results, von der Leyen and her team have done real damage to the EU and its self-image as a champion of open markets and the rule of law.
The question of competence
Several officials complained that her predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker, would never let events get out of hand in such a way and wondered if von der Leyen would be forced to bring back some of the his advisers to stabilize the ship. One has speculated that European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides is likely to become a scapegoat.
Even those close to von der Leyen admit that mistakes have been made. As a sign of a lack of foresight at the game, Dublin officials only found out about this move on social media. Some worry that the anger could have permanently affected the complex arrangements designed to prevent the return of a harsh Irish border, giving it a clear critique of the Brexit and EU agreement.
An official in Brussels said that this happens when policy-making is done too quickly.
Von der Leyen’s spokesman Eric Mamer said it was an institutional reality that all decisions went through the president’s office and the college of commissioners. No decisions are made without the consent of the college, he added.
As von der Leyen and her team struggled to counter the crisis, their thinking was shaped by a burning sense of injustice about how AstraZeneca Plc handled its initial 336 million vaccine contract. euro ($ 408 million). Bloomberg spoke with EU bureaucracy officials and national governments, most 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 executive director, Pascal Soriot, had done them wrong, some even suggesting that Astra had breached its contract with the block.
An exercise that began as an expedition to bring transparency and gather evidence against the company quickly turned into a chaotic mud chaos that some fears could lead to a trade conflict in the midst of a pandemic.
“Vaccine diversion”
Astra triggered the crisis just over a week ago, when it revealed it was reducing the planned vaccine reduction to the EU by 60% to 31 million doses reported after a Belgian plant was shut down. At the same time, deliveries in the UK largely met expectations, helping the course of the British vaccination program off the continent.
The latest data show that the EU has given 2.6 doses per 100 people, compared to 12.5 in the UK and 8.8 in the US. News of the delays has shaken fear and outrage across the continent.
“Vaccine diplomacy has turned into vaccine diversion,” said Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.
Bloomberg Covid-19 Tracker: Over 90.8 million photos taken
Astra has indeed used its EU supply chain to fulfill the British contract. The Working Party on Vaccines in the UK 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 recent days, the vaccine was heading to the UK. Britain was bottled in Germany.
Vaccine production sites in Europe
The EU is determined to look more closely at these movements.
The Commission’s health services told Member States’ ambassadors this week that millions of vaccines had been shipped from the EU in recent months to countries such as the United Kingdom, China, Israel and Canada, according to a diplomatic cable seen by Bloomberg.
Some European officials suspect that Astra was responsible for some of these shipments and should have kept doses back for European buyers. But they have no evidence to prove it, because the data is not broken down by the manufacturer.
Export controls
Obtaining this information was the goal on Monday, when the commission’s commercial service began drawing up plans for a system that would have forced companies to simply report their exports. It would also require companies to provide data for exports since December, clarifying how many doses Astra has already exported.
“We do not intend to impose an export ban or export restrictions,” said EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis. he told reporters on Tuesday. “It’s a matter of transparency.”
This was also the moment when the CEO of Astra chose to go on the offensive with an extension European interview newspapers including La Repubblica in Italy. He said the delays were partly due to the EU signing its supply contracts after the UK and dismissed the allegations of profit.
“I am European, I have Europe at heart,” he said. “So we want to treat Europe as well as we can. You know, we do this to no avail, remember? ”
Photographer: Zach Gibson / Bloomberg
Read more: Astra-EU fight opens new rupture in global tender to end pandemic
By Tuesday evening, pressure had begun to rise from Germany, first and then from France, for a stricter approach.
Until Wednesday morning, tensions between the two sides were so severe that they could not even agree to a phone call. scheduled for that evening went ahead.
Soriot’s interview angered officials and member states. The ambassadors were told at a briefing that day that the statements made by the CEO of Astra are shocking and do not comply with contractual obligations, says a diplomatic note seen by Bloomberg.
At a subsequent press conference, Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides rejected the arguments of the first-come, first-served doctor. “That might work for neighborhood butchers, but not in contracts,” she said said.
At that time, von der Leyen decided that the commission needed to flex its muscles and the focus shifted to a tougher regime, forcing contract companies to provide the EU not only to notify, but to obtain permission before exporting doses. outside the block.
It would be a blunder
However, EU Commissioners, who normally make decisions collectively, were deeply divided over its adoption. In the end, the decision to choose a stronger approach was made by von der Leyen and her office.
Thus began a mad rush to draw up a plan ahead of Friday’s self-imposed deadline. The rush and pressure to deliver led to a chain of blunders.
Reporters were invited to a technical briefing on Thursday before a proposal was finalized, which the Commission almost never does.
On Friday morning, the EU published its contract with Astra, with clumsy confidential sections in a way that meant that the information was easily discovered by amateur online amateurs. Dombrovskis and Kyriakides were expelled for presenting the new regulations before several elements, including its decision-making clauses, were properly confirmed.
While the key sections in Northern Ireland were a late addition to the document, all relevant senior officials were involved and saw the plan before it was implemented. The final conclusion 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 working group were only called at the end of the trial 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 British Prime Minister Boris Johnson were both outraged by the decision to introduce temporary control of export vaccines between the EU and Northern Ireland and expressed serious concerns.
Von der Leyen spoke quickly with both Martin and Johnson on the phone to try to clarify things. The EU removed the regulation from its website and was forced to withdraw in a statement just before midnight. Von der Leyen followed with a series of late tweets.
But the whole episode was red meat for Brexit supporters in the UK, Tom Tugendhat, a moderate member of the Johnson Conservative Party, said he had revealed the EU’s attitudes and shown how little goodwill there was.
Although the EU executive arm will not trigger the controversial clause, it has not completely removed the threat, warning in its subsequent statement that it will consider using “all instruments” if circumventing vaccine export bans.
An updated version of the plan released on Saturday morning does not include sections on Northern Ireland, but it does suggest suspicions that Astra could exploit the Irish border as a back door to send photos of Covid-19 from the EU to the UK.
Manufacturers will be required to provide information on all doses of vaccine distributed from 1 December, including those sent to Northern Ireland.
And von der Leyen is allowed to pick up the pieces after one of the most difficult episodes of her tenure.
Lucinda Creighton, former Minister for European Affairs in Dublin, gave a brief assessment of the week’s events.
“Disaster,” she said in a Twitter post.