IN THE FACE OF SECOND-GUESSING, the EU’s most powerful capitals are defending the joint approach. France's Macron “is firmly convinced that we shouldn't give in to the illusion that we would have done better on our own,” said the Elysée official.
The Commission’s strategy may yet be vindicated in the longer term. If there turns out to be problems with a vaccine, the insistence on holding drugmakers liable will look inspired. Likewise, it’s too early to tell whether the EMA’s by-the-book approval process will ultimately boost willingness to actually receive the shots — a factor that could matter more than delayed rollouts in the coming months and years. Already, Europe is using a broader set of data than the U.K. to evaluate the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab.
Speaking to the Bundestag on January 13, Spahn, the German health minister, urged his colleagues to consider the geopolitical consequences of having gone alone. “Let's play it out,” he said. “If our Eastern and Southern European partners had not received a vaccine through the EU, who would likely have stepped in? China? Russia? Would we have preferred that?”
And yet, there’s little evidence the Brussels-led effort hasn’t prevented eastern and southern partners from looking elsewhere.
Cyprus
reportedly requested help from Israel. And Hungary has
explicitly broken ranks with the rest of the EU, issuing national compassionate use authorizations for the AstraZeneca jab and — to Spahn’s point — Russia’s Sputnik V. Budapest is also
near a deal for a million shots from China’s Sinopharm. For richer countries in particular, the comparison with the U.K. is illustrative.
The Commission official involved in negotiations acknowledged that Britain’s experience is an “interesting microcosm of some of the kind of Brexit opportunities and risks.”
As a smaller market, the U.K. almost certainly paid more. “They’ve clearly had to create the worst terms and conditions,” the Commission official said. “God knows what they’ve agreed to on liability and indemnification.”
At the same time, there’s little denying that, while the variety of jabs available in Britain isn’t as wide as it is across the channel,
no EU country has vaccinated more people than the U.K. If the U.K. were still a member of the EU, it would be the
only country on track to achieve the Commission’s goal of vaccinating 70 percent of the adult population by summer at their current pace.