Thread by @DaveKeating

BREAKING: President @VonDerLeyen announces EU will use 'all tools at its disposal' to convince US and UK to start exporting vaccines produced in their territory.

"We will reflect on whether exports to countries that have higher vaccination rates than us are still proportionate"

VDL notes vaccines made in EU are exported, but none from US&UK

"We need to ensure that there is reciprocity and proportionality. If the situation does not change we will have to reflect on how to make exports to vaccine-producing countries dependent on their level of openness"

VDL notes UK has received most vaccines made in EU of any country: 10m since 31 Jan. EU getting no doses from 2 UK AZ plants in EU contract because of UK-first Oxford contract.

"This is an invitation to be open, so we also see exports for those countries coming back to the EU"

In the last 6 weeks, 314 shipments of 41 million doses have been exported to 33 countries, VDL says. 1 AZ shipment of 250,000 has been blocked under EU's new vaccine export mechanism.

Commission is ready to use it again.

VDL also says #AstraZeneca's failure to meet promises to EU is unacceptable.

She notes #Pfizer and #Moderna are "delivering on their contracts" - Pfizer 66m doses in Q1 and Moderna 10m.

AZ delivering only 30m of promised 90m doses in Q1, 7-m of 180m promised for Q2, she says.

"#AstraZeneca has unfortunately underproduced and underdelivered," says @VonDerLeyen. "This painfully reduced the speed of the vaccination campaign."

If exports could come from 2 UK plants despite Oxford's supposed UK First contract, it would fix this.

President Von Der Leyen says she will take this idea to ban exports to vaccine-producing countries to the #EUCO summit of national leaders happening in Brussels next week.

"I want to get into a discussion mode that highlights the reciprocity," she says.

Europeans were furious last week when they learned US&UK have received millions of vaccines made in EU, but both aren't exporting any vaccines made in their territory (US by law, UK by contract).

EU says AZ promised to deliver to EU from its 2 UK plants.
nytimes.com/2021/03/11/us/…

As far as we know (still questions about NL Helix plant), EU exports to UK are Pfizer, and Pfizer is meeting EU commitments.

The export mechanism is designed to only block shipments from companies not meeting commitments.

So a ban on Pfizer exports would be a new thing entirely

Would EU enact a measure that prevents Pfizer from delivering on its UK contract?

Well that's what Commission says the UK is doing now with AstraZeneca's commitments in its EU contracts - preventing the contract from being met because of supposed Oxford-UK Britain First policy.

There are 2 specific things EU can ask for to avoid vaccine export ban to US&UK, an EU source tells me:

🇺🇸US should release for export the 30m AstraZeneca doses sitting unused because FDA still hasn't approved AZ

🇬🇧UK should release AZ from any Britain First contract commitment