EU drops Irish border plan for vaccine export
curbs
Move to trigger override clause in Brexit deal set off
political firestorm.
BY DAVID M.
HERSZENHORN AND JAKOB HANKE VELA
January 30,
2021 12:49 am
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-drops-irish-border-plan-coronavirus-vaccine-exports/
The
European Commission reversed course Friday night after howls of protest from
the U.K. and Ireland over the triggering of an emergency override provision in
the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement as part Brussels’ new effort to control vaccine
exports.
The
decision to trigger the provision, Article 16 of the Protocol on Ireland and
Northern Ireland, blindsinded Dublin and London, and set off a firestorm as it
would have the effect of temporarily nullifying the special border arrangement
intended to preserve the Good Friday peace agreement.
The
Commission invoked the emergency provision as part of a new export control
mechanism that is designed to restrict international shipments of coronavirus
vaccines if the EU's own orders are not being met in accordance with its
purchase contracts.
Two
Commission officials described the move as a mistake and the Commission issued
a statement late Friday, in which it did not explain the error but said it
would no longer trigger the override provision and that the Withdrawal
Agreement would remain intact.
“In the
process of finalisation of this measure, the Commission will ensure that the
Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol is unaffected,” it said in the statement.
“The Commission is not triggering the safeguard clause.”
The
Commission added, “Should transits of vaccines and active substances toward
third countries be abused to circumvent the effects of the authorisation
system, the EU will consider using all the instruments at its disposal.”
The swift
about-face came after Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin and U.K. Prime
Minister Boris Johnson separately phoned Commission President Ursula von der
Leyen to express deep concerns. Johnson and Martin also held a conversation on
the issue.
In a tweet
late on Friday night, von der Leyen said she spoke to Martin “to agree on a
satisfactory way to introduce an export mechanism for COVID vaccines.” But that
only raised a question of why she hadn’t consulted the Irish leader before the
Commission published its export regulations earlier in the day.
Irish Foreign
Minister Simon Coveney welcomed the Commission's statement but added pointedly
that "lessons should be learned; the Protocol is not something to be
tampered with lightly, it’s an essential, hard won compromise, protecting peace
& trade for many."
An official
in contact with the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said the EU’s
top Brexit experts were not consulted on the decision to trigger the override
provision and were stunned to learn about it. The official suggested von der
Leyen and her cabinet were directly responsible.
Earlier
this week some officials had described tension between Commission trade experts
wary of creating tough export restrictions and political leaders and officials
in national capitals eager to take a tough line in demanding manufacturers meet
their commitments.
A spokesman
for No. 10 Downing Street said that in Johnson's call with von der Leyen, the
British PM "expressed his grave concerns about the potential impact which
the steps the EU has taken today on vaccine exports could have."
Later, von
der Leyen tweeted that she had held "constructive" talks with
Johnson: "We agreed on the principle that there should not be restrictions
on the export of vaccines by companies where they are fulfilling contractual
responsibilities."
The
contretemps over Northern Ireland, subject of some of the most sensitive
aspects of the Brexit negotiations, came at the end of an extremely tense week,
in which the Commission clashed openly with AstraZeneca, the British-Swedish
pharmaceutical giant, which had announced a huge shortfall in vaccine
deliveries for the EU in the first three months of this year.
Article 16
of the Protocol allows one side to unilaterally override the Withdrawal
Agreement in certain circumstances, but the move is explosive because it
effectively imposes a customs border between Ireland and Northern Ireland,
which is anathema to the Good Friday Agreement. Some political figures in
Northern Ireland had immediately begun calling for the U.K. to trigger a
retaliatory move.
Glaring
mistake
The
Commission's mistake was particularly glaring because its trade department is
now led by Sabine Weyand, who was one of the EU's top negotiators on the Brexit
Withdrawal Agreement and is well-versed in the political volatility surrounding
the protocol on Northern Ireland. Trade officials said the blunder was caused
by concerns among EU health officials that Northern Ireland could become a hub
for illicit shipments of vaccine to the U.K. from the EU.
Officials
said the triggering of Article 16 was probably unnecessary in the first place
because there aren't stocks of vaccine in Ireland to be shipped anywhere.
A senior
Irish government official said the Commission completely overlooked the
political sensitivities while focusing on the vaccine issue. “Brussels seems to
have been looking at the big global picture and took its eye off of the
Protocol," the senior official said. "We note that the original
announcement of an export ban outside the EU did not even mention Ireland or
the border. It’s quite the oversight, if indeed that’s what it was.”
The fear in
Ireland was that even with the reversal the Commission's move would inspire a
big push by Northern Ireland unionists to get various problems with the Irish
Sea customs border canceled, by having the U.K. trigger the same Article 16.
That would potentially force both sides into a new strand of negotiations, when
the new Brexit trade deal has not yet even been ratified.
“It’s the
last thing we would have expected," the senior Irish official said.
"We are hoping the damage from this confusion can be quickly contained,
and that communication improves.”
The chaotic
developments on Friday night were a serious embarrassment for von der Leyen,
who is already facing some criticism over the EU's uneven handling of its
vaccine strategy. While the Commission managed to unite all 27 EU countries
behind a joint vaccine purchasing process — ensuring equity among countries
regardless of size or wealth — the EU has trailed countries like Israel, the
U.S., and the U.K. in vaccinating its citizens.
The news of
the AstraZeneca production shortfall came after EU heads of state and
government had already expressed anger over another slowdown in the manufacture
of a different vaccine by BioNTech/Pfizer. Pfizer said it needed to slow output
briefly this month to refit a factory in Belgium, but insisted that production
would quickly ramp up again.
The new
mechanism to control exports was devised after AstraZeneca effectively rejected
the Commission's demands to supply some vaccine to the EU from factories in the
U.K. The company's CEO insisted he was not obligated by contract to meet
specific production targets but only make a "best effort" — an
assertion that the Commission flatly refuted.
In a
further sign of the rushed, haphazard process by which EU officials developed
the new vaccine export controls, the Commission also said that it would be
making unspecified changes to how decisions are made to authorize — or
potentially block — vaccine shipments.
"In
the process of finalising the document, the Commission will also be fine-tuning
the decision-making process under the implementing regulation," the
Commission said in its statement on Friday evening, adding that a final version
of the new rules would be published on Saturday.
An EU
official said the decision-making change would safeguard cooperation between
the Commission and EU member states, but did not provide any details.
Emilio Casalicchio, Shawn Pogatchnik and Maïa de La Baume
contributed reporting.
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