BRUSSELS, Belgium (CU)_The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, told members of the European Parliament on Tuesday (Feb 2) she accepted “full responsibility” for the row with the UK over vaccine distribution last weekend.
The bloc attempted to add a provision to EU’s vaccination export ban, which could have seen checks at the border of Ireland and Northern Ireland to prevent vaccine shipments entering the UK. However, the decision was soon reversed, following widespread criticism from London, Dublin and Belfast, which were all blindsided by it.
Sources say the president expressed regret for even considering overriding the Brexit border rules, known as Article 16. “We should have avoided having the discussions we had on even thinking about triggering Article 16,” a participant in the meeting quoted von der Leyen as saying.
The Commission has refused to identify who inserted the provision into the regulation, and has instead said it was a result of a collaborative effort of different teams and cabinets.
Several MEPs, including MEP Seán Kelly, an Irish member of the center-right European People’s Party group, expressed satisfaction with her explanations about the Brexit issue. “She said she took full responsibility for it,” Kelly said, adding that he was “very pleased that she was upfront & answered all questions in sequence, including ‘tricky ones’”.
However, there were others who said they still wanted von der Leyen to answer questions about vaccines during a public debate in plenary, rather than in political group meetings behind closed doors. MEP Katalin Cseh, a Hungarian member of the Renew Europe group, said she hopes to see von der Leyen in plenary, next week, as openness and transparency are key to restoring trust in the Commission.
“I dearly hope we will see her next week in plenary, and we will be able to have a public debate on this extremely crucial issue, the main concern of our citizens all over the Union,” Cseh said. “Without openness and transparency, it will be extremely difficult for the Commission to restore trust.”
It is reported that during the meeting several political groups also demanded answers about the EU’s troubled coronavirus vaccine rollout.
Participants in the meeting say that while von der Leyen acknowledged some missteps by the Commission, however, she defended the joint vaccine procurement program of the EU, saying that pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca still has not given a satisfactory explanation on the production shortfall that will leave the bloc short of millions of doses expected through March.
Moreover, the president said the Commission was pushing to make all of its vaccine purchasing agreements public, while, the internal market commissioner Thierry Breton was trying to identify locations in Europe that could help ramp up vaccine production.
