The EU must learn from its Covid vaccine failure, not lash out at the UK

Editorial: An early attempt by some EU countries to act independently in pandemic preparations was opposed by the commission – this was a bad mistake. Control of medicine regulation must go back to member states

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, got it wrong on vaccines (AFP/Getty)

Britain’s vaccination effort has been an outstanding success so far. Praise is due to Kate Bingham, the former head of the vaccines taskforce, who took early and calculated decisions that effective vaccines could be developed and deployed faster than ever before. She advised, and Matt Hancock, the health secretary, and Boris Johnson, the prime minister, decided. They made several of the right decisions, including signing an unambiguous contract with AstraZeneca, three months before the European Union did.

The EU is now in danger of seeming to be motivated by spite and envy. Its leaders have threatened to impound stocks of the Pfizer vaccine, made in Belgium, which the United Kingdom has bought; they have demanded that AstraZeneca vaccines made in the UK should be diverted to the EU; and they threatened to tear up the EU-UK trade treaty to impose a hard border in Ireland, only to claim last night that this was due to an “oversight”. 

Other EU leaders have accused the UK of “vaccine nationalism”, which is true in that the UK has not supplied its vaccinations to the citizens of other countries according to need – but no democratic country’s government would survive long if it did such a thing. Inevitably, our government is seeking to protect the vulnerable in this country first, and then to achieve herd immunity across the nation. But in the meantime AstraZeneca, with the support of the UK government, is also licensing its vaccine for local manufacture in India, and the UK will soon have a surplus of vaccines to export – at cost price – to the world.