The botched vaccination rollout has been a reputational disaster, proving the European Union to be a petty and dysfunctional bloc.
Source - Daily telegraph 26/01/21
The EU’s Covid vaccination programme is a fiasco. So badly has the bloc bungled its vaccine rollout that an escalating row between Brussels and the 27 member states, to say nothing of voter outrage, is damaging “project Europe” itself.
At the start of the pandemic, the European Commission decided that it would take responsibility for sourcing the vaccines, despite its limited competence in the area. It reasoned that its size and the “efficiency” of its bureaucracy would enable it to seize a lead on its rivals in the vaccine race, and show the tangible benefits of European unity.
Instead the experiment has turned into a catastrophe. The UK has administered 10.3 doses per 100 of our population, including four-fifths of the over-80s. No EU nation comes close. Germany has managed just 2.1 doses per 100, the EU average is 1.9 and it’s 1.7 in France. Other member states, such as the Netherlands and Sweden, are lagging further behind.
Now public confidence across the EU is deteriorating fast. Parts of the German press have accused Angela Merkel of sacrificing lives by overriding the vaccine policy of her own government and entrusting it to Brussels. There have been riots in some member states among populations who can see no realistic hope of an exit from lockdown. That’s why the Eurocrats are lashing out, indulging in dangerous vaccine nationalism and seeking scapegoats for their own failures.
In doing so, however, they are exploding another EU myth: that it is a rules-based body devoted to international law and truth. The commission is threatening to obstruct exports of vaccines made in the bloc, including to Britain, in breach of commercial contracts. We’ve also seen what appear to be attempts to discredit the UK-made vaccine. Such disinformation wars are reckless. The AstraZeneca vaccine is vital – set to be used across the world, given that it is cheap and can be stored in a domestic fridge. The UK is right to be furious.
Of course nobody in the EU is prepared to own up to their mistakes. Instead they are doubling down on the ridiculous suggestion that Brussels has received unfair treatment at the hands of the vaccine manufacturers. But at a time of intense demand, shortages are inevitable. Production is an unpredictable biological process and both AstraZeneca and Pfizer have admitted to understandable delays. The bottom line is that, for all the UK’s failings during the pandemic, this country invested much earlier and to a far greater extent in the production, clinical trials and procurement of vaccines than the EU. So did the US – and again, America’s vaccine rollout is far superior.
The commission has displayed its usual combination of cack-handedness, bureaucratic torpor and a tendency to bend to special interests. Having dithered over the summer, Brussels buckled to pressure from Paris, ordering 300 million doses of the GSK-Sanofi vaccine. That bet back-fired – a major trial setback means this “French” vaccine won’t be ready until at least the end of 2021.
Brussels placed no firm order with Pfizer until mid-November – even though its partner firm BioNTech is German and had emerged as a front-runner months before. By then, other customers having moved much faster, the EU was way down the list.
“Obviously, the European purchasing process was flawed,” says Markus Söder, the Bavarian premier among the favourites to replace Merkel as chancellor. “It’s hard to explain why people elsewhere are being vaccinated more quickly with an excellent vaccine developed in Germany.”
As for the AstraZeneca vaccine, the European Medical Agency has claimed its “higher standards” have prevented it so far granting approval. And, even then, there may be further delays as labels for the vaccine are printed in the EU’s multiple languages.
The Brussels-made vaccine fiasco will result in more deaths, a longer lockdown and a deeper recession. As government debt ratios across the bloc spiral upward, a repeat of the 2011 eurozone crisis looms into view.
The UK has made serious mistakes – our high Covid death rate isn’t only due to our global connectedness. But the vaccine challenge has been a reputational disaster for the EU – with these latest moves revealing it to be spiteful and dysfunctional, a shabby, protectionist bloc.
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