The European Commission will publish its review of the Covid-19 vaccine export licensing and transparency mechanism on Wednesday 24 March. It follows recent announcements by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that AstraZeneca is not meeting its commitments on vaccine deliveries to the EU (see EUROPE 12683/24).
According to an EU source, the review will follow the direction of the President’s speech on the need for reciprocity with countries that receive vaccines produced in the EU but do not export their production. Mrs von der Leyen can also count on France and Germany, which have both expressed their support for this request for reciprocity in recent days, through the voices of certain ministers.
“We want to avoid that the doses produced by AstraZeneca in the EU go to the United Kingdom, while we receive nothing”, the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, told France Info on 23 March.
According to the EU Commissioner for Interinstitutional Relations, Maroš Šefčovič, the EU Affairs Ministers generally expressed concern about the supply of vaccines by companies producing them on EU territory during a video conference meeting on 23 March.
He also stressed the need for proportionality in vaccine trade, as 70 million doses have been delivered to the EU and 41.5 million doses have been exported under the transparency mechanism.
The Commission’s intention to tighten the rule on exports of Covid-19 vaccines was also expressed by the Chief Vaccine Negotiator, Sandra Gallina. She said the EU would use all means at its disposal to secure access to vaccines produced in the EU by AstraZeneca, in an exchange with members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control on 23 March (see other news). (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)