EU tightening on vaccine exports: green light if there is reciprocity and proportionality

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March 24, 2021 The European Commission has adopted a revision of the mechanism for the authorization of the export of vaccines, adding "reciprocity" and "proportionality" among the criteria to be evaluated for the green light. 

Applications will be assessed on a case-by-case basis, but the aim is that export requests do not pose a threat to the security of vaccine supply for the 27 EU countries. 

The initiative revokes the exemption for 17 countries, while Covax's 92 low- and middle-income countries remain excluded from the instrument's scope.

Union companies "have exported large quantities of products covered by the export authorization mechanism to countries that have a large production capacity of their own, while those countries restrict their exports to the Union by law or by contractual or contractual arrangements. other types concluded with vaccine producers established in their territory. This imbalance leads to supply shortages within the Union ", reads the regulation just approved. 

"Furthermore - it is explained - the Union producers have exported large quantities" of doses to some "countries without production capacity, but which have a higher vaccination rate than the Union or where the epidemiological situation is less serious than in the EU. Exports to these countries can therefore threaten the security of supply within the Union ".

"Member States should refuse export authorizations accordingly" and "the Commission should also consider these additional elements" for its assessments.

Decisions for the authorization to export doses will not be automatic and "will not be established by algorithms, but will be decisions on a case-by-case basis".

Thus the vice president of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, presenting the revision of the vaccine export authorization mechanism.

The vice-president of the Commission underlined AstraZeneca's "severe failures" in the distribution of vaccines in the European Union: "of 120 million doses" that it should have delivered in the first quarter according to the contract, it has cut to "30 million but it is not even close to this figure, "he pointed out. 

"The European Union has exported 10.9 million doses" of vaccines to the UK since late February.

From the UK to the EU, zero has arrived.

When it comes to solidarity, it is necessary to discuss "reciprocity and proportionality".

Thus Dombrovskis answers a question about the new rules introduced in the export authorization mechanism for serums.