| schema:articleBody
| - A cameo appearance by US President Joe Biden will do little to distract from the danger of Europe's looming third wave of coronavirus infections at Thursday's EU video summit. The US president will address the 27 EU leaders by videolink later in the day in a show of mending transatlantic ties after the diplomatic battles of the Donald Trump years. But, as the EU leaders' talks started, it was clear Biden's intervention would be just a brief respite from the main subject: How to outpace the resurgent pandemic when vaccine deliveries to the bloc have come up short, and jab campaigns are getting off the ground slowly? Host Charles Michel, president of the European Council, had hoped to hold a face-to-face summit but was forced to accept a stripped-down video conference because of travel curbs. A key summit topic is the European anger over UK-based pharma giant AstraZeneca failing to meet vaccine delivery promises while ensuring smooth supplies to former EU member Britain. EU countries are also squabbling amongst themselves over how to share vaccines, and not all are happy with a beefed-up European Commission move that could block some vaccine shipments to countries like Britain which produce jabs but don't export them. Draft conclusions seen by AFP support the EU export authorisation scheme while urging Europe to step up vaccine production. "We underline the importance of transparency as well as of the use of export authorisations," the draft says. "We reaffirm that companies must ensure predictability of their vaccine production and respect contractual delivery deadlines." French President Emmanuel Macron admitted on the eve of the summit that Europe had lacked ambition while the United States, in particular, forged ahead with its inoculation drive. "We weren't quick enough, strong enough on this," he told Greece's ERT television. "It's quite true and we thought that the vaccine would take time to take off." Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel defended Europe's pooled-purchasing strategy, telling German lawmakers: "I wouldn't like to imagine what would happen if some member states had vaccines and others not. That would shake the internal market to its core." A European official described the EU export authorisation mechanism as "a loaded gun under the table". It is widely seen as a means to pressure AstraZeneca to boost deliveries. But Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands are among countries wary of any move to block exports from vaccine producers such as Pfizer/BioNTech, which supplies both the EU and UK. If global vaccine supply chains are disrupted, many countries could lose out, as both British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen accept. Their administrations issued a joint statement saying: "We are all facing the same pandemic and the third wave makes cooperation between the EU and UK even more important." They are in discussions about how "to create a win-win situation and expand vaccine supply for all our citizens" but have yet to come to agreement on how to share AstraZeneca doses. The firm has delivered only 19 million of the 30 million doses it had promised to the EU in the first quarter -- a pledge already radically reduced from a contractual 120 million doses. Much of the focus of Brussels and London is on an AstraZeneca plant in the Netherlands producing doses which both sides claim should be theirs. A European diplomat told reporters that an acceptable compromise would be the UK and the Commission agreeing to equally shoulder the AstraZeneca shortfall. Another sensitive issue is the distribution of vaccines which Europe has already received. A group of smaller states led by Austria is demanding a revision in the divvying-up method after they missed an earlier opportunity to secure a bigger share of costlier vaccines by betting on the cheaper -- but unreliably supplied -- AstraZeneca one. Against this backdrop, Biden's appearance offers a positive note, with European officials delighted with the new US administration's warmer tone. Just before the summit started, Biden's top diplomat Antony Blinken wrapped up a two-day visit to Brussels that included talks with NATO ministers and top EU officials in which close coordination was pledged. burs-dc/rmb/kjl
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)