EC President Ramps Up Vaccine Export Controls Rhetoric, Holds Call With Johnson
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for “reciprocity” and “proportionality” in the European Union's COVID-19 vaccine export regime, at a March 17 press conference. To incentivize greater openness in other countries' vaccine exports, von der Leyen placed a special emphasis on reciprocity, detailing how the EU is prioritizing exporting vaccines to countries that create their own vaccines. “We think this is an invitation to be open,” she said. “So that we also see exports from those countries coming back to the European Union.”
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The EU implemented its vaccine export control regime on Feb. 1 (see 2102010012). Since then, more than 300 requests for export have been approved, according to von der Leyen, and only one has been denied -- a shipment of more than 250,000 vaccines to Australia blocked by Italy (see 2103080006).
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that von der Leyen held a phone call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson just hours after her press conference. Tensions are high between the two sides after both parties traded jabs over blocking COVID-19 vaccine exports. The EU accused the United Kingdom of blocking all exports to its former bloc, a claim it strongly denied (see 2103090047). The U.K. is the largest recipient of EU-exported vaccines while the EU has yet to receive any U.K.-made vaccines.