Main points of the European Commission's new vaccine export restrictions:
1/ On top of the Jan 29 transparency mechanism, ie whereby member states must grant an authorisation to vaccine exports outside the EU to ensure they're compliant with EU vaccine contracts, there are added criteria
2/ Proportionality: roughly speaking, how much of the recipient country has already been vaccinated and what is the epidemiological situation in that country
3/ Reciprocity: to what extent has the recipient country sent vaccine doses/component parts to the EU
4/ Officials say this is a complex area and each export request will be look at on a case by case basis, ie no set thresholds in terms of the percentage of a recipient country population which has already been vaccinated
5/ Officials at pains to stress this is not an export ban, pointing out that of 381 export authorisation requests since the end of January, only one was refued (the 250k doses Italy blocked from going to Australia)
6/ Guiding principle is "security of supply" for EU citizens.
7/ On the reciprocity principle, it's not a one-for-one approach, ie for every vaccine dose the EU receives they will grant one in return. Officials say they're looking for "fairness", not a one size fits all approach
8/ Officials also insist these new criteria are WTO-compliant
9/ Officials also stressing the importance of global vaccine supply chains and the need to keep talking to partner countries.
10/ When pressed what would happen if a recipient country has not shown reciprocity, or if there is not proportionality, officials refuse to say even then are they talking about blocking exports.
11/ "It is not our intention to block things. Europe is the main exporter of vaccines, but we need to make sure we have our citizens in mind," says official
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