Health How will the lives of those vaccinated change?
US Joe Biden plans to repeat term and vows to improve the border crisis "very soon"
Today the European Union has exported
many more
vaccines
than it has administered
.
Amid doubts about their control mechanism for the delivery of doses, accusations of "nationalism and protectionism" from London and despite the precarious situation of the continent compared to the US or Israel, the 27 have injected 62 million doses, but they have allowed the exit of 77 million vials.
There is talk of delay in contracts, mismanagement, lack of foresight or investment.
There is talk of crisis of leadership, of innocence, of mistakes
.
Worse even if all that were true, the great reason that explains the differences with the most advanced places on the planet in vaccination rates is that they play by different rules.
Until yesterday we knew the figures for the last two months,
when the EU began to require prior permission for exports and exhaustive information
, but this Thursday the president of the European Commission has broken down the complete data.
The result is striking, because they verify that the pharmaceutical companies with which the EU has contracts have supplied 88 million doses to the 27, but in the same period 77 million have left for 33 different countries.
To put the amounts in perspective,
the UK has received 21 million vaccines from mainland factories
, but not a single vial has flowed from UK facilities to the EU.
Nor have vaccines come out of the US.
Everyone is fighting against the clock, everyone is in a hurry and fears a supply cut, but only one bloc is fulfilling its obligations to its citizens,
to the poorest countries, and to its neighbors and partners.
The heads of state and government of the 27 met this Thursday by teleconference to discuss relations with Russia and Turkey, the situation of the euro and industrial policy issues.
To also greet the president of the United States, Joe Biden,
in a staging of the return to normality after the four years of Trump
and the clashes with Beijing and Moscow.
But they met, above all, to talk about vaccines and open wars, external and internal.
The situation is very delicate. Fatigue after a year is visible.
Countries are once again confined these weeks with much less energy.
Even Chancellor Angela Merkel, the strongest pillar, made and admitted a serious mistake this week and reversed more restrictive measures.
The fact that the Italian authorities
found 29 million
AstraZeneca
vaccines
on the outskirts of Rome
that no one in Brussels was aware of has reinforced the feeling that the Anglo-Swedish must be tightened more, but nobody is very clear how to do it without that ending in an open confrontation between countries and continents and put the global supply chain at risk.
The strengthened mechanism announced on Wednesday by the Commission, and endorsed by the leaders, will allow blocking not only companies that breach their contracts
with the EU, but also countries that do not respect "reciprocity and proportionality
.
"
That is: if a government does not allow the export of vaccines abroad, it would not be able to receive vaccines manufactured in EU facilities.
And if the authorities consider that an export endangers the European supply, or would go to a country whose situation is clearly better than the continental one (in vaccination rate, for example), it could also be prohibited.
NERVOUSNESS
But the issue has made some capitals nervous.
They know that the current situation is not fair, but they fear that there is more to lose than to gain, because although there is no dose from the US or the UK, materials do come out.
And from Asia too.
That is why they ask for prudence.
At the same time, Brussels needs to show forcefulness to be respected, by Executives and companies.
AstraZeneca, which is in breach.
But also Pfizer,
which, although it is perfectly up to date, is suffering and will suffer more and more pressure
.
India has announced that it is stalling the exit.
The US, since Trump, does.
And yesterday Biden, who had promised 100 million doses in his first 100 days, assured that the new goal was 200 million, since the first had been achieved in just 58 days.
Something that the EU could almost replicate if it had opted for the same control measures.
But in addition to the external problems
, the leaders have had to face the internal rebellion that the Austrian Sebastian Kurz stars
, supported more or less by Czechs and Slovenians.
Kurz complains that he doesn't have enough vaccinations and wants more.
It does not ask for solidarity, it demands it.
Last year the Commission proposed an equitable distribution system, based on population, to distribute all vaccines from all manufacturers.
But the governments wanted to go to the letter, prioritizing according to price, logistics, trust.
So many rejected amounts from Pfizer and bet on AstraZeneca
.
And they have lost out.
The European Commission
has convinced Pfizer to advance up to 10 million additional doses
, which were planned for the second half of the year, for the next three months.
And Austria is claiming more than its share.
The 27 are willing to show solidarity with the worst hit countries, for whatever reasons, but they do not sympathize with Austria, and they emphasize that in fact their figures are for now better than those of the majority.
And Kurz, who depends on the next few months of the AstraZeneca doses that are not going to arrive, he planted himself.
Nobody wanted a technical discussion at the Summit.
Ambassadors from at least four countries repeated these days that it was not the place, and that they should not even solve it, but the joint committee created precisely to deal with vaccines, which has representatives of the 27. But Kurz, very questioned, needed prominence and gamble.
It was not an epic fight, it is not a veto, but the staging of unease and division
, the same that contributes to leaving the world an image of weakness and amateurism.
The one that allows less compliant companies to look for shortcuts.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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