EU rethinks lid on vaccine exports to Britain via N. Ireland

BRUSSELS — The European Union early Saturday abruptly reversed an attempt to restrict vaccine exports from the bloc into Britain via Northern Ireland, the latest stumble in the continent’s faltering vaccine rollout.

The bloc had come under harsh criticism Friday from Britain, Ireland and the World Health Organization when it announced plans to use emergency measures under the Brexit deal to block covid-19 vaccines from being shipped across the Irish border into Britain.

The reversal came as the European Commission and its president, Ursula von der Leyen, were already under fire for the comparatively slow rollout of vaccinations in the 27-member states, especially compared with Britain and the United States.

The commission announced the restrictions without consulting member states or Britain, a former member — unusually aggressive behavior that is not typical of the bloc, said Mujtaba Rahman, the head of Europe for the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.

“There’s clearly panic at the highest levels of the commission, and the issue of the Northern Ireland agreement has been swept up in this bigger issue of the EU’s poor vaccine performance,” he said.

Already slow in ordering and delivering the vaccines, the bloc’s plan to vaccinate 70% of its adult population by the summer was hit with a blow when AstraZeneca announced that it would slash vaccine deliveries because of production problems.

The initial EU plan to limit vaccine exports to nonEU countries raised cries of outrage from the Republic of Ireland, a member of the European Union, and Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. Both sides are committed to not re-creating any land border between the two parts of the island of Ireland.

Triggering the emergency measures in the Brexit agreement so soon after Britain left the bloc’s authority at the end of 2020 seemed to call into question the European Union’s sincerity in following through with the deal regarding Ireland — which was one of the biggest sticking points to reaching the deal. Ireland’s prime minister, Micheal Martin, immediately raised the issue with von der Leyen.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke to both leaders, and Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland’s first minister, called the bloc’s move “an incredible act of hostility.”

Britons who favored Brexit point to their country’s more rapid vaccination rollout as a benefit of leaving the bloc and its slower, collective processes.

Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative member of British Parliament who initially opposed Brexit but voted reluctantly for the deal, said on Twitter that the signals from the vaccine dispute were a cause for concern.

“Whatever your view on Brexit, it is now completely clear how we’re seen by the EU — we’re out,” he said, and “the good will is sparing.” He called for a policy that “rebuilds relationships.”

Von der Leyen and the commission were quick to back down, insisting that a mistake had been made and that any vaccine export controls would ensure that the Brexit agreement, which gave assurances that there would be no new border checks between Ireland and Northern Ireland, would be “unaffected.” That protocol essentially treats Northern Ireland as part of the European Union’s regulatory space.

But it was clear that the move to bring in export controls was aimed at preventing any vaccine doses produced within the European Union from being sent into Britain across the open border in Ireland.

The British took it as an aggressive act. Johnson called von der Leyen and said afterward that he had “expressed his grave concern about the potential impact.”

The WHO joined in the criticism of the EU export controls, saying that such measures risked prolonging the pandemic. Its director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said Friday that “vaccine nationalism” could lead to a “protracted recovery.” Mariangela Simao, the assistant director-general for access to medicines, on Saturday called the move part of a “very worrying trend.”