EU anger at top official over jab lies
BRUSSELS was forced into a humiliating climbdown yesterday after Boris Johnson challenged its bogus claims about Britain’s vaccines programme.
In a highly unusual intervention, the Prime minister rounded on the EU’s chief eurocrat Charles michel after he claimed that Britain had imposed an ‘outright ban’ on vaccine exports.
mr Johnson told MPS that the allegation by the president of the european Council was untrue, adding: ‘Let me be clear – we have not blocked the export of a single Covid vaccine or vaccine components. This pandemic has put us all on the same side in the battle for global health – we oppose vaccine nationalism in all its forms.’
In a further sign of the Government’s irritation, a senior EU official was yesterday summoned to the Foreign office – and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab wrote to mr michel in order to ‘set the record straight’.
The european Commission later admitted mr michel was wrong to suggest the UK had banned the export of vaccines.
Privately, ministers believe mr michel’s intervention was a ‘distraction technique’ to draw attention away from the sluggish pace of EU vaccine rollout.
While the UK has now administered 35 jabs per 100 people, the most successful EU country is Denmark on 13. France and Germany are each on ten.
Whitehall sources pointed out that while the UK has placed no restrictions on the export of Covid vaccines, the EU has imposed controls allowing member states to block their sale overseas – powers used last week by Italy to halt a shipment of 250,000 Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs to Australia. The EU also had to apologise after threatening to impose a hard border in Ireland to enable it to block the export of vaccines to the UK.
But mr michel insisted the moves did not amount to ‘vaccine nationalism’ – and accused Britain and the US of operating tighter rules.
In a newsletter on Tuesday, he insisted the EU had ‘never stopped exporting’, adding: ‘The facts do not lie.
‘The United Kingdom and the United States have imposed an outright ban on the export of vaccines or vaccine components produced on their territory.
‘But the european Union... has simply put in place a system for controlling the export of doses produced in the EU.’
The european Commission last night refused to back mr michel – and conceded his claim was wrong. Spokesman eric mamer said: ‘We have a policy of not commenting on other people’s comments.’ He said that ‘different countries have got different measures in place’ as part of the fight against coronavirus, adding: ‘This does not concern vaccines, as far as we understand, coming from the UK.’
German MEP Gunnar Beck said: ‘eurocrats are simply green with envy that Brexit Britain has been far quicker and more effective in its vaccine rollout.’
Last night No 10 insisted there was no legal bar on UK exports.
Government sources said Britain’s efforts had been focused on sharing ‘intellectual property’ to enable countries overseas to make their own supplies of the oxford vaccine, rather than simply exporting doses made here.
‘Eurocrats green with envy’