European Union tightens vaccine export controls
The headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels.
REUTERS - Francois Lenoir
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
While Italian inspectors have discovered 29 million unaccounted AstraZeneca doses in the Agnani bottling plant, the European Commission is tightening up vaccine exports by strengthening its control mechanism.
This mechanism in force since the end of January has already been used to ban a shipment of 250,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from Italy to Australia, and it will be tightened.
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With our correspondent in Brussels,
Pierre Benazet
The European Commission is making every effort to prevent this measure from being described as an export ban.
She insists that it is officially a "
transparency and control mechanism
".
She pointed out that out of 381 export requests, all were authorized, except one, that from
Italy to Australia
.
The Commission also claims that Europe is the world's largest exporter of vaccines with 43 million doses to 33 countries since January, in particular to countries that are part of the
Covax
vaccine solidarity
mechanism
.
The fact remains that this tightening
of the control mechanism
, if it is validated by the 27 capitals, will limit exports with two criteria: proportionality and reciprocity.
Exports will be more difficult to authorize if they are destined for a country which does not export to the EU.
The Commission takes the example of the United Kingdom to which ten million doses have been exported and from which no doses have been received.
And for proportionality, EU countries, which are responsible for enforcement, will have to check whether the vaccination rate is higher than in the Union or the number of cases lower, which could prevent giving the export authorization.
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European Union
Vaccines
Coronavirus