The observation is clear: the vaccination campaign within the EU, which has pooled its vaccine supply, is much less advanced than across the Channel.

The UK has already vaccinated more than 10 million people - the third best rate in the world, behind Israel and the United Arab Emirates - after securing the delivery of the highest number of doses per capita in the world.

Yet the European Union is in dire need of vaccines to cope with the current wave of Covid-19.

In Portugal, which has become the global epicenter of the pandemic, the country's "mister vaccine" warned on Wednesday 3 February that the country "could not do much more" because the EU did not have enough doses to accelerate the vaccination rate.

For the same reason, the Spanish authorities have stopped injections in the Madrid region, for ten days, from January 27.

The next day, three French regions, including the Paris region, had to suspend all appointments for the administration of the first doses in order to ensure that the second could be made on time.

"No emergency" for Brussels

At the end of January, the delays in deliveries of anti-Covid vaccines highlighted the weaknesses of the EU in its management of the supply of vaccines.

AstraZeneca warned Brussels on January 22 that due to manufacturing problems in Belgium, it could ultimately only deliver 31 million doses by the end of March.

The Europeans had yet bet on the delivery of 80 million doses over the period.

The EU then demanded that Belgium divert the doses intended for the United Kingdom to the block.

Impossible, according to AstraZeneca: the contract with the British strictly forbids it.

Indeed, London had signed the contract with AstraZeneca three months earlier than the EU, giving the laboratory enough time to sort out any logistical problems, the company said.

As it turns out, the UK has negotiated a "much tougher contract," says Adrian Wooldridge, political editor of the British weekly The Economist and co-author of The Wake-Up Call ("The Signal alarm ", untranslated), a book on the Covid-19 pandemic.

AstraZeneca finally agreed on February 1 to provide 9 million additional doses to the EU, totaling 40 million doses by the end of March ... half of what Brussels had planned.

The European bloc also had problems getting hold of the Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines, unlike the British who were quicker, buying their doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine as early as July.

The laboratory had yet offered to the EU to sell 500 million doses the same month, but Brussels refused the offer, deeming it too expensive, according to an internal document consulted by Reuters.

"The orders were placed late and focused on the price of the doses, above all: it seems that the EU did not consider it a priority to have the vaccine", explains Nicolas Bouzou, head of the Parisian consulting firm Astères.

In the summer of 2020, Brussels felt there was "no emergency" because "the contrast with the desperate health situation in the United States made Europeans forget that the pandemic was still an emergency which called for a decisive vaccination strategy ", analyzes Bruno Maçães, political scientist for the Hudson Institute in Washington and former Portuguese Minister for European Affairs, in the British magazine UnHerd.

The Commission "not up to the task"

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the European Union delegated health policy to national governments.

But Brussels is responsible for procuring the vaccines for the block from the summer of 2020, as part of the "European Health Union", according to the formula used by Ursula von der Leyen during her first speech on State of the Union in September.

However, member countries remained free to reject this supranational scheme, but none did.

With Brexit, it was "easy" for the UK to establish its own vaccine strategy, added Nicolas Bouzou.

"The European Commission is very good at negotiating trade agreements, among others, but it has no particular competence for vaccines or contract negotiations, which were traditionally delegated to member countries," points out Adrian Wooldridge.

"The Commission decided to broaden its field of action and it was not up to the task: it did not have the right teams or the right skills," he continues.

The British government, for its part, has appointed Kate Bingham to head its vaccine purchase program, a specialist from a venture capital firm in the biosciences.

"She is competent in purchasing vaccines and negotiating contracts, and Ursula von der Leyen does not have the same skills, nor anyone around her", analyzes Adrian Wooldridge.

"The best of pubs" for Brexit

The EU's misadventures over vaccine supplies have even sparked strong criticism in Germany, the continent's most pro-European country.

The management by the European Commission has been "shitty", declared Thursday (February 4th) the German Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Finance, Olaf Scholz, during a council of ministers.

It led to the "best pro-Brexit publicity", summed up the very pro-European weekly Die Zeit in an editorial at the end of January.

However, the vaccine strategy fiasco in the EU "could not have been a better time for the pro-Brexit, illustrating their idea that leaving the EU meant leaving a sclerotic institution", continues the journalist.

“This has a geopolitical effect,” adds Nicolas Bouzou.

"The EU ends up looking like a failure while the UK, US, Israel and even Russia look like leaders."

This article has been translated from English, find the original version here.

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