Canberra today asked the European Commission to review Italy’s decision to block a shipment of 250,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine bound for Australia.
An EU official on Thursday told POLITICO the Commission had not opposed Italy’s move, as it agreed there was a risk of a breach of the EU’s advance purchase agreements with the pharma company.
“Australia has raised the issue with the European Commission through multiple channels, and in particular we have asked the European Commission to review this decision,” Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt told reporters in Melbourne, according to a Reuters write-up of the remarks.
The Italian foreign ministry also justified its move by noting that Australia is not considered a “vulnerable” nation when it comes to the pandemic. While Australia is in the early phases of its vaccination rollout, the country’s case numbers are low, with just two locally acquired coronavirus infections in the past seven days country-wide, according to the federal health department.
“In Italy, people are dying at the rate of 300 a day. And so I can certainly understand the high level of anxiety that would exist in Italy and in many countries across Europe,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a press conference on Thursday.
The European Commission in January passed a regulation instructing its customs authorities to block all coronavirus vaccine exports to some 100 countries worldwide, unless they receive an export authorization from national governments in the EU, after AstraZeneca announced a massive shortfall in the number of doses it would deliver to the Continent in the first quarter of 2021. Reuters reported the EU intends to expand the controls until the end of June.
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