Australia raises stakes in vaccine war with EU
The federal government has accused Europe of ‘‘arguing semantics’’ over vaccine exports and criticised Brussels for not responding to an urgent request for 1 million doses to be diverted to coronavirus-ravaged Papua New Guinea.
Canberra is locked in a rolling dispute with the European Commission over the fate of millions of doses that should have been shipped to Australia for the early stages of its vaccination rollout.
Australia was originally expecting 3.8 million AstraZeneca doses from factories in Europe but supply shortages and export curbs mean about 3.1 million are unlikely to ever arrive.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday said tensions in Europe were to blame for Australia missing its target of vaccinating four million Australians by the end of March, and he announced yesterday he would seek formal approval from AstraZeneca for the release of the blocked vaccines.
‘‘I want to stress that at no time yesterday [Tuesday] did I make any comment about the actions of the European Union, nor did I indicate any of the background reasons for the lack of supply that we have received from those contracted doses,’’ Morrison said at a press conference in Canberra yesterday morning.
‘‘I simply stated a fact – that 3.1 million of the contracted vaccines that we had been relying upon in early January when we’d set out a series of targets did not turn up in Australia. That is just a simple fact.’’
The European Commission formally blocked the shipment of 250,000 doses to Australia in early March. It was the first and only time the bloc used sweeping new powers to ban exports to other countries.
The powers force AstraZeneca to seek permission from European officials before sending vaccines to wealthy nations like Australia.
The missing 3.1 million doses have not arrived in Australia because AstraZeneca has not asked for approval to export them from Europe, fearing the application will be knocked back.
In a new statement released yesterday morning, a federal government spokesman said the European Commission had made it clear that further deliveries would never be approved.
‘‘AstraZeneca has not been able to secure an export licence from Europe to send the remaining doses, and they know they would never be approved by the European Commission,’’ the spokesman said.
‘‘The European Commission itself has confirmed their export control regime has blocked the export of a number of those doses, including a shipment of 250,000 doses, and they also requested we withdraw other export permit applications.’’
This is the first time the Morrison government has publicly claimed that Europe asked for export approvals to be withdrawn.
The spokesman also rejected an overnight statement from the European Commission which noted it had only formally blocked 250,000 doses bound for Australia.
‘‘The European Commission is arguing semantics but at the end of the day, all we want is what Australians have ordered so we can get more vaccines in arms,’’ the government spokesman said.
Morrison yesterday went into detail about the negotiations with the European Union, saying Australia had reached an agreement last September for the 3.8 million vaccines but said this was cut to
1.2 million in January and cut again to 250,000 in February.
The European Union then blocked the 250,000 doses on March 3, he said.
Morrison said he was pleased to hear in the last 24 hours that the European Union had indicated they would not restrict the vaccines going to Australia, adding that he would write to AstraZeneca to seek the full shipment of 3.8 million doses.
‘‘So, if it is, indeed, the position of the European Union that they are happy for these export licences to be granted and their
3.8 million doses to come to Australia, then we would encourage them to do that in response to our request,’’ he said.
The Morrison government is also angry with the European Commission for not replying to a request to ship lifesaving vaccines to PNG to help ease a rapidly worsening outbreak.
Warning the PNG outbreak could morph into a health crisis for the region, Morrison last month asked European leaders to redirect one million of Australia’s 3.1 million un-supplied doses to PNG.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is yet to send a reply to Morrison’s written plea nearly three weeks after it was sent.
Australian officials have been lobbying their EU counterparts to have the 1 million doses released to PNG but are pessimistic about their chances.
The European Commission is understood to have questioned why Australia would want Europe to send AstraZeneca vaccines to PNG when Australia has domestic production capacity at a factory in Melbourne.
Australia has given PNG 8000 doses for frontline health workers but sending more doses could be politically difficult given Canberra’s rollout is already behind schedule.
Liberal MP Dave Sharma, a former ambassador to Israel, criticised the silence from Europe.
‘‘If Europe is unable or unwilling to provide to Papua New Guinea 1 million of the vaccine doses contracted to Australia, they should be up front and declare so now,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s been more than two weeks and we are yet to receive a response, and given the speed and scale of the outbreak in PNG, time is of the essence.’’
The EU’s own rules state that shipments bound for low and middle-income countries like PNG should not be blocked.
However, AstraZeneca may not even have enough doses to send to Australia as first promised given it is having trouble ramping up production. The company had planned to supply 180 million doses to the EU in the second quarter but will only deliver 40 million in that time. –
‘‘So, if it is, indeed, the position of the European Union that they are happy for these export licences to be granted and their 3.8 million doses to come to Australia, then we would encourage them to do that . . .’’ Australian PM Scott Morrison