Johnson seeks to end UK-Brussels stand-off over AstraZeneca vaccine

Boris Johnson has sent an emissary to Brussels to end a bitter stand-off over vaccines, calling for “international co-operation” and warning that a surge in Covid-19 cases in the EU would end up hitting the UK.

Speaking on Monday ahead of the anniversary of Britain’s first lockdown, Johnson said Britain and the EU were in the same boat: “On the continent right now you can see, sadly, there is a third wave under way,” he said.

“And people in this country should be under no illusions that previous experience has taught us that when a wave hits our friends, I’m afraid it washes up on our shores as well.”

Tim Barrow, Britain’s former ambassador to the EU, was dispatched to Brussels to try to defuse a looming vaccine war and to offer British support to efforts to boost production capacity.

Vaccines have emerged as the latest flashpoint in relations between the EU and UK as the two sides deal with the consequences of supply shortfalls from AstraZeneca, the pharmaceuticals company.

AstraZeneca has made promises to both the UK and the EU that it cannot fulfil. So there will need to be some sort of deal

London insists its deal with AstraZeneca gives it first call on production from the EU, and not just UK factories. But the EU is equally adamant that it is entitled to both AstraZeneca supply from Europe and a share from two UK factories named in its own contract.

Johnson has in recent days held talks over vaccines with leaders including Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, and Emmanuel Macron, president of France. The issue will be considered by European leaders at a summit that begins on Thursday, as Brussels discusses tighter controls on vaccine exports.

Micheál Martin, Ireland’s prime minister, said any EU export ban would be a “retrograde step”. He told RTE radio: “I’m very much against it . . . it’s absolutely vital that we keep supply chains open.”

A particular focus on the UK-EU talks are the two sides’ competing demands on millions of doses of the AstraZeneca produced at a Dutch factory run by Halix, a subcontractor.

EU officials say the stockpile of Halix production, which is of undisclosed size, should be delivered to the bloc as soon as the factory receives regulatory authorisation from the European Medicines Agency, which is expected to happen soon.

Asked whether it was prepared to give up some of the doses at the Halix plant in Leiden it claims are contracted to the UK, Downing Street said it expected contracts to be honoured but that it had other sources of supply.

“That’s one plant,” a spokesman for Johnson said. “It’s also produced in the UK and it’s produced in India.” Johnson’s former chief of staff Eddie Lister is in India, trying to boost supplies from that country’s Serum Institute.

One EU diplomat said: “AstraZeneca has made promises to both the UK and the EU that it cannot fulfil. So there will need to be some sort of deal. But it’s worth remembering that these Halix doses are in the EU, and AstraZeneca needs permission to ship any of them to the UK, so the cards are stacked against the UK.”

Ruud Dobber, president of biopharmaceuticals at AstraZeneca, insisted at a press conference that Halix was “a very small site in the overall supply chain”, adding: “For Europe, by far the biggest ones are the sites in the US and in Belgium.”

Frustration with AstraZeneca has boiled over in EU capitals as the company has repeatedly slashed its delivery commitments. The UK is also preparing for tighter vaccine supplies in the coming weeks.

The EU diplomat argued it would be in UK interests to settle the matter before the EU summit. “If the dispute is still going then, there will not be a lot of understanding for the UK’s position from EU leaders who are battling a third wave.”