Official: 'EU Leaders Have Differing Views On Vaccine Export Controls'

Headlines on wires and social media from an unnamed EU official stating that 'EU leaders hold differing views on vaccine export controls'.

• The issue of vaccine export controls is likely to dominate tomorrow's European Council virtual summit.
• Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has seemed lukewarm on the prospect of a ban, saying yesterday that "You have to be very careful now about imposing general export bans – you have to take a very close look at the supply chains." However, Germany and France have both backed EU calls for 'proportionality and reciprocity' in vaccine exports.
• Some member states, notably Ireland, have come out strongly against vaccine export controls. Regarding Ireland, there could be the risk that imposing export controls on vaccines going to the UK could threaten the status of either the Northern Ireland protocol, or the checkless border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
• The swiftly-reversed imposition of a vaccine export ban by the EU in January caused uproar on both sides of the border. Should the EU block vaccine exports to the UK it would necessitate a border on the island of Ireland, breaching the Good Friday agreement. If the EU sought only to impose blocks on exports to the rest of the UK but not Northern Ireland it would be reliant on the UK gov't not importing those vaccines to GB from NI.