EU reverses plan to restrict vaccine exports through Irish border

LONDON/BRUSSELS • The European Union has abruptly reversed a plan to use emergency Brexit measures to restrict exports of Covid-19 vaccines from crossing the Irish border into the United Kingdom after it sent shock waves through Northern Ireland, London and Dublin amid criticisms over the EU's control of vaccine supply.

If the EU had gone ahead to apply the restrictions, it could trigger a chain reaction in the rest of the world where governments might take aggressive steps to ensure vaccines for themselves at the expense of others which could affect global supply, experts said.

In a steep escalation of the EU's fight to secure vaccine supplies, Brussels had said it would trigger clauses in the Northern Ireland Protocol to prevent vaccines from moving across the open border between EU-member Ireland and the British-run province.

Following an outcry in London, Belfast and Dublin, the EU published a statement just before midnight on Friday saying it would ensure that the Northern Ireland Protocol, designed to keep the border open, would not be affected.

It warned, however, that should vaccines and active substances move towards third countries and out of the bloc, it would use "all the instruments at its disposal".

Ireland said the EU's change of heart was welcome but that lessons should be learnt.

"The Protocol is not something to be tampered with lightly, it's an essential, hard-won compromise, protecting peace and trade for many," Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney tweeted.

The Brexit agreement, which was sealed 41/2 years after Britons voted to leave the EU, lays down the terms of the divorce.

Under Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol, Northern Ireland effectively remains part of the EU's customs union and single market.

The deal's aim was to avoid land border friction and violence between those who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK and those who want it to be reunited with Ireland.

Preserving the delicate peace in Northern Ireland without allowing the UK a back door into the EU's markets through the UK-Irish 500km land border was one of the most difficult issues of the Brexit divorce talks.

The EU's original plan was intended to prevent the open border between EU-member Ireland and Northern Ireland from acting as a back door for vaccine supplies into the UK.

The public reversal followed a round of frantic calls as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen of his "grave concerns", while Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin spoke to both Mr Johnson and the EU chief to find a solution. Northern Irish unionists cast the EU's original plan as an act of hostility.

In a tweet on Friday, Dr von der Leyen said she had spoken to Mr Johnson: "We agreed on the principle that there should not be restrictions on the export of vaccines by companies where they are fulfilling contractual responsibilities."

The swiftest mass vaccination drive in history is stoking tensions across the world as big powers buy up doses in bulk and poorer nations try to navigate a financial and diplomatic minefield to collect whatever supplies are left.

The EU, whose member states are far behind Israel, Britain and the US in rolling out vaccines, is scrambling to get supplies just as the West's biggest drugmakers slow deliveries to the bloc because of production problems.

The British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca has been caught in the crosshairs after it said this month it would fall short of delivering promised vaccines to the EU by March because of production problems in Belgium.

That angered Brussels which has demanded to know why the company cannot divert supplies from its British sites, which have been producing millions of shots for British citizens.

Britain has its own domestic supply chain in place for AstraZeneca, including rolling it out in Northern Ireland, but it imports Pfizer's vaccine from a factory in Belgium.

International trade expert Simon Evenett at the University of St Gallen in Switzerland said the European Commission's restrictions would "open Pandora's box".

If governments do take aggressive steps, others could hold back shipments of key ingredients required to make vaccines, or invoke rights to try to produce shots themselves, said Prof Evenett.

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG