[corty]

No, they are currently just requiring export licenses "to get an overview". Up to now, all export requests have been granted and there are large parts of the world where no license is required: https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/weltwirtschaft/eu-impfs...

Overall I would call it useless EU blustering, there won't be an export ban, no matter what happens. It is just the minimum required measure to save face.

[bb123]

Also lets not forget that this was specifically targeting the UK, not the rest of the world.

[corty]

That is not quite true, it doesn't only target the UK. The export requirements apply to basically everyone except third-world countries through Covax and Switzerland/Norway/Ukraine/Israel due to existing treaties.

But it is true that the AstraZeneca/UK-situation was the trigger event that lead to the public noticing that something was amiss.

[emteycz]

Are you saying EU specifically tried to ban export to UK while export to the rest of the world is ok?

[Reason077]

There is/was a contract dispute between the EU and AstraZeneca regarding supply of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The EU wanted AstraZeneca to supply additional vaccine from it's UK-based factories, which are already contracted to supply the UK.

The export registration requirements (not an export ban) are, at least in part, in response to this dispute.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jan/30/lawyers-dis...

[bipson]

Well, the contract with the EU included the UK factory(ies) as a (potential?) supplier to the EU.

UK signed the contracts slightly earlier and jump-started the programme by issuing an emergency approval a few weeks earlier than the regular approval by the EMA.

And above all, it seems despite all efforts of coordination and treaties (COVAX), almost all players (except Norway) are playing the auction game and hoarding.

This is a global pandemic and these "selfish" actions will have global effects :(

[corty]

The rest of the world will get it's vaccines after the first-world states are all vaccinated. And while it sucks to live in a third-world country where vaccinations will come 2022 or 2023 maybe, I can't see any other way, except if the third world would do their own production. Letting more people in the first world die to save some in the third world would be politically impossible.

[Reason077]

The problem is that letting the virus continue to circulate unchecked in the developing world just gives it more opportunities to mutate into new, possibly vaccine-resistant variants. Variants can then spread back to infect the first world, and as we've already seen, this can happen quite quickly.

A global vaccination strategy is needed if we really want to get on top of Covid for the long term.

[the-dude]

There was misunderstanding and arrogance from EU bureaucrats about how business works. They have already tracked back ( Von Der Leyen in EU parliament, Merkel in media ).