European Parliament is ‘not a punch bag’ says David Sassoli
Despite EU leaders shunning the move, the floundering top eurocrat highlighted Britain’s mass vaccination charge as a potential target for the merciless measures. Insiders said her plans were dead on arrival at the summit even though the EU’s vaccine scheme is lagging massively behind the UK. Critics accused the German Commission chief of opting for pressing the “nuclear button” instead of seeking a more diplomatic resolution to the jabs crisis.
Mrs von der Leyen made a desperate pitch at the summit in a bid to convince the EU27 to endorse her new powers – which have entered into force.
The European Commission chief presented a slideshow detailing the number of vaccines exported from mainland Europe to the rest of the world.
A European source told Express.co.uk that the Brussels boss deliberately pointed out that 21 million of the 77 million doses had landed in Britain.
Insiders suggested the move was an attempt to bounce cautious capitals into supporting the export ban.
EU boss Ursula von der Leyen uses map to show EU exports of 21m jabs to UK
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
Mrs von der Leyen even dispatched her French internal market commissioner to drum up support of EU envoys in Brussels.
At a private Brussels meeting, Thierry Breton told ambassadors that Britain would soon be scrambling around for European-made jabs because of the UK’s strategy to delay the second dose.
The French eurocrat insisted Brussels was in a strong position to force Downing Street to concede in talks over Oxford jabs produced at a factory in the Netherlands.
Brussels is demanding the lion’s share of vaccines manufactured at the Halix plant in Leiden and has previously threatened to block exports from it to Britain.
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Mr Breton told the FT: “We have a feeling that the vaccine nationalism is really on the other side of the Channel.
“We are not seeing any vaccines in the UK arriving here.”
But EU leaders are expected to snub Mrs von der Leyen’s attempts to get them to go along and enforce her ban on jab shipments.
European governments largely refused to endorse the mechanism in their post-summit final statement, according to diplomats close to the talks.
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EU leaders summit in action
Insiders said they snubbed any reference to Mrs von der Leyen’s blockade on life-saving medical supplies and opted for much softer language.
A leaked draft of their statement, seen by Express.co.uk, said: “We underline the importance of transparency as well as of the use of export authorisations.”
Hardliners France, Italy and Poland continued to back a jab export ban on countries with a better vaccine rollout than the EU.
Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki urged Brussels to go further by seizing control of factories and ripping up patents for the Oxford jab, as well as blockading deliveries abroad.
He said: “It is time to replace strong words with strong actions. We must put more effective solutions on the table.”
The European Parliament also threw its weight behind the draconian measures, insisting the EU had been “naive” by allowing too many exports.
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Its president David Sassoli told a Brussels news conference: “We can’t allow vaccines to go to countries that don’t need them.”
Brussels has had an export ban in place since late January but only used it once to stop 250,000 AstraZeneca jabs from being sent to Australia.
Mrs von der Leyen plans to use a beefed-up version to stop shipments to countries with better vaccination rates than the EU.
The powers have officially entered into force without a vote or being endorsed by EU leaders and opponents fear they will be overruled by the top eurocrat for refusing to use them.
British officials fear the UK will fall foul of the measures because Britain has administered 46 jabs per 100 people, compared to the EU’s rate of just 13.
No10 has opened talks with Brussels to broker a “win-win” agreement on sharing vaccines and to steer the bloc away from a full-blown trade war.
EU member states have ‘big divisions’ on vaccine exports
German Chancellor Merkel, who initially supported the plan, was leading a group of worried European capitals urging Brussels to back down on its threat to blockade.
The EU nations, including Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands, fear Mrs von der Leyen could trash vital supply chains by moving to cut-off shipments to Britain.
She was even attacked by her predecessor Jean-Claude Juncker, who branded her vaccines war on the UK as “stupid”.
Boris Johnson’s former top adviser Dominic Cummings agreed, insisting: “Juncker is no dummy, he’s right.”