European Union
Australia says it’s reached a free trade deal with Britain
Britain and Australia had agreed on a free trade deal that will be released later Tuesday, Australian Trade Minister Dan Tehan said.
The agreement is the first for Britain since it left the European Union.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison had reached agreement on the deal during negotiations in London, Tehan said.
Read:Odds of settling US-EU trade rifts? Hope may outrun progress
“Both prime ministers have held a positive meeting in London overnight and have resolved outstanding issues in relation to the FTA,” Tehan said in a statement, referring to the Free Trade Agreement.
“Their agreement is a win for jobs, businesses, free trade and highlights what two liberal democracies can achieve while working together,” Tehan added.
Both prime ministers would make a formal announcement on Tuesday morning in London and release further information, he said.
Tehan said he spoke to Morrison on Tuesday. Australian Agriculture Minister David Littleproud described the deal as a “in-principle agreement.”
Read:OPEC to boost oil output as economies recover, prices rise
“The details are being nutted out from the in-principle agreement that our two prime ministers were able to get to last night over dinner,” Littleproud told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“Our departments and the Trade Department are working through feverishly to make sure that an announcement can be made at our time tonight so that Australians will see exactly what is in that in-principle agreement,” he added.
The agreement is Australia’s 15th free trade agreement.
RMIT University international business expert Gabriele Suder said the deal was good news for both Britain and Australia.
Read:Australian court upholds ban on most international travel
“It’s wonderful news for the U.K. ... in particular because this is the first post-Brexit deal that has been really constructed from scratch, negotiated from scratch, and in addition has been negotiated in a record time of just one year, which is very, very unusual for free trade agreement negotiations,” Suder said.
Britain is Australia’s fifth-largest trading partner. Suder said she expected the deal would add 1.3 billion Australian dollars ($1 billion) a year to the Australian economy.
Odds of settling US-EU trade rifts? Hope may outrun progress
President Joe Biden has vowed to mend America’s trade relations with its European allies, which were stretched to the breaking point by President Donald Trump’s mercurial behavior, combative policies and aversion to multinational alliances.
Yet when he meets Tuesday with European Union leaders in Brussels, Biden may find that making up is hard to do. The prospect of forging an accord to resolve their differences — and perhaps form a united front against an increasingly confrontational China — may be stymied by European skepticism.
Sounding a sour note about Biden’s intentions, Valdis Dombrovskis, a Latvian political leader who serves as the European Union’s trade chief, said in speech last week that the time had come “for the U.S. to walk the talk.”
Dombrovskis was referring in part to Trump’s 2018 decision to impose import taxes on foreign steel and aluminum — a decision that left European leaders furious and triggered retaliatory steps against the United States. Biden has been slow to take up the possibility of dropping the tariffs, which Trump had imposed on the basis of “national security.”
Read:OPEC to boost oil output as economies recover, prices rise
Asked about the tariffs during a news conference Sunday as he wrapped up his time at the Group of Seven summit in the U.K., Biden pleaded for patience with his young administration, saying, “A hundred and twenty days. Give me a break. Need time.”
And with trade tensions still shading the trans-Atlantic relationship, the EU may also prove reluctant to join a U.S.-led effort to confront China over its provocative trade policies.
Then there’s a longstanding dispute over how much of a government subsidy each side unfairly provides for its aircraft manufacturing giant — Boeing in the United States and Airbus in the EU.
“This has been going on for 17 years,” says Cecilia Malmström, a veteran of trans-Atlantic battles as the European trade commissioner from 2014 to 2019.
All that said, U.S.-EU relations are still certain to be much friendlier than they were under Trump, who regularly accused the Europeans of shirking their responsibility to pay for their own defense through NATO and of exploiting what he called unfair trade deals to sell far more products to the United States than they buy.
In a goodwill gesture in March, the Biden administration and the EU did agree to suspend the tariffs they had imposed on each other in the Airbus-Boeing battle. Several news outlets have reported that U.S. and EU diplomats are working on a draft communique that would call for the Boeing-Airbus dispute to be resolved by July 11 and for the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs — and the EU’s retaliatory sanctions — to be lifted by Dec. 1.
Read:Biden directs US to mitigate financial risk from climate
The Biden administration also announced Friday that Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo would be joining the U.S. delegation; her department administers the steel and aluminum tariffs.
Kelly Ann Shaw, a former Trump administration trade official who is now a partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells, suggested that the EU and U.S. are eager to move past their tariff battles “so they can move on and tackle some 21st century challenges, not the least of which is China.”
Last week, though, Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, sounded noncommittal in speaking with reporters on Air Force One.
“There has been good progress in those negotiations,” Sullivan said of the Boeing-Airbus dispute. “But I’m making no promises about what might happen.”
Regarding the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, Sullivan noted that the EU agreed last month to suspend plans to escalate retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products — a concession meant to ease tensions and encourage further negotiations. But he added: “That’s going to take some time to work out.”
Asked specifically whether the United States would be rolling back the metals tariffs, Sullivan shook his head.
Read:Ji'nan to hold ‘Dialogue Sessions of 2021 for Executives from Multinational Corporations (Ji'nan) & China-Japan Industrial Innovation and Development Exchange Conference’
The steel and aluminum dispute is an especially sensitive one. In moving to tax imported metals, Trump dusted off a little-used weapon in U.S. trade policy to justify the tariffs: He declared the foreign metals to be a threat to U.S. national security — a decision that startled and outraged Europeans and other longstanding American allies.
“Almost all the EU members were NATO members,” said Malmström, now a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “How could we be a national security threat? It was offensive.”
Malmström said she was surprised that Biden hasn’t already dropped the tariffs and hopes he will do so at the summit Tuesday.
“Maybe he’s saving this as a gift,” she said.
Complicating the political calculus for Biden is that U.S. labor unions and steel and aluminum producers — some of them concentrated in states important to Democratic election prospects — want to maintain the tariffs on the imported metals to help keep prices up. A key reason is that China, which churns out more than half the world’s steel, has contributed to an oversupply that has otherwise kept global prices down.
Demonstrating a united U.S.-EU challenge to China’s aggressive policies could strengthen the trans-Atlantic negotiating leverage. But Malmström said she is skeptical about whether the EU is eager to join the United States to face up to China and force a reckoning over its trade practices.
Read:Apple brings CEO Tim Cook to court in defense of app store
The Trump administration’s imposition of tariffs on $360 billion of Chinese goods came against the backdrop of a roiling conflict over the predatory tactics that China is widely accused of deploying to try to supplant America’s global technological dominance. Many trade experts say Beijing has coerced American companies to hand over trade secrets as the price of access to its market, forced U.S. businesses to license technology in China on unfavorable terms, used state funds to buy up American technology and committed outright theft.
Critics, including Biden, had lambasted Trump for alienating would-be allies like the EU instead of enlisting them to help challenge Beijing. For now, though, Biden hasn’t called off Trump’s trade war against China.
Malmström noted that among the EU’s 27 member countries, “there is no full unanimity on how to deal with China.” She suggested that the EU might go along with the United States on specific measures — perhaps cracking down on Beijing’s subsidies to its own companies, for example — but still stop short of joining the United States in any wide-ranging confrontation with China.
“The EU will not just sign up to a U.S. agenda on the bottom line,” she said. “The EU is not in trade war mode against anyone.’’
Indo Pacific region holds future but tensions growing: EU
High Representative of the European Union Josep Borrell has said the Indo Pacific region is the future, but insecurity and tensions are rising, threatening the order and balance of this dynamic region.
"The key point to make here is that the economic growth of this region rests on openness, on stable and shared rules, and shared security," he said.
The High Representative for the EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy made the remarks while sharing the EU approach to the Indo-Pacific at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Read:Bangladesh seeks TRIPS waiver to ramp up Covid vaccine production
Borrell said this is a dynamic region and it is as much a strategic space as a geographical reality, which they define as stretching from East Africa to the Pacific Island States.
"It’s becoming the world’s centre of gravity, both in geo-economic and geo-political terms," he said.
The EU is the top investor and development assistance provider for the Indo-Pacific and one of its biggest trading partners.
The Indo-Pacific creates 60% of global GDP and two-thirds of global growth. It is the second largest destination for EU exports; and home to four out of the top ten EU trading partners, according to the European Union.
By 2030, the overwhelming majority (90%) of the 2.4 billion new members of the middle class will come from this region, it said.
However, Borrell said, amid all this dynamism, the regional stability is increasingly challenged: maritime and land disputes, internal crises and conflicts, and the US-China geo-political competition is intensifying.
Read:US unveils strategy for global vaccine sharing with Bangladesh, India on list
"We see the consequences around the world, but most sharply in this region. A clear sign is the strong regional military build-up," he said.
The Indo-Pacific’s share of global military spending increased from 20% in 2009 to 28% in 2019 and is rising further, Borrell said.
"That means countries in this region are investing heavily in their militaries, as they aren’t sure what the future holds. It’s a sign of a worsening regional security landscape," said Borrell.
A research Institute in Singapore recently asked opinion-leaders and policy-makers in Southeast Asia who would be their most favoured and trusted strategic partner. Four in 10 of the respondents picked the EU.
EU & COVAX
Borrell said they favour vaccine multilateralism and believe that COVAX is the best way to ensure the access to vaccines by low and middle-income partner countries in this region.
"We put our money where our mouth is, and the EU is now the second largest contributor to COVAX with over EUR 2.4 billion," he said.
Read:Dhaka, London hopeful of signing climate accord before COP26
In addition, Borrell said they are the world's largest exporter of vaccines. "With over 240 million doses, we have exported around half of our production to 90 countries."
He said the “EU Digital COVID Certificate” that the EU is working on will not be exclusive or to build barriers. "It’s mainly regulating and allowing inside-EU travel."
In their efforts to globally fight the pandemic, Borrell said they deliberately chose a different path from others.
"We do not offer preferential treatment, nor do we seek political favours in return. Instead, we look for concrete cooperation, including with ASEAN."
EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy
The EU wants to expand engagement with this region, which is why the 27 EU Foreign Ministers recently adopted a new EU Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, after several EU member states had already done so at national level.
Read:COVAX Facility: Japan to provide 30mn vaccine doses to other countries
The basic message is that the EU will work with its partners in the Indo-Pacific to respond to emerging dynamics that are affecting regional stability, said Borrell.
"Our approach is by the way very close to ASEAN’s own Outlook on the Indo-Pacific."
Concretely, he said, they will advance joint work to boost trade and investment, economic openness and a sustainable approach to connectivity.
The EU will promote multilateral cooperation, working on global challenges, from the pandemic to climate, from ocean governance to digital.
"And we will deepen our security engagement, seeking to make that cooperation as concrete as possible," said Borrell.
He said their new strategy aims to deepen regional integration and is inclusive for all partners in the region, wishing to cooperate with the EU when our interests coincide.
Read:ILO: Slow jobs recovery, increased inequality risk long-term COVID-19 scarring
"This includes China because we know that in important areas, like climate, fisheries and biodiversity, its cooperation is essential," said Borrell.
He said they do not aim to create rival blocs or force countries to take sides, and want to deepen our cooperation with democratic, like-minded partners.
"The European Union’s commitment to democratic rights and fundamental freedoms is very strong. Not because we see these as European or Western constructs. But because these values and principles are universal," he said.
In post-pandemic Europe, migrants will face digital fortress
As the world begins to travel again, Europe is sending migrants a loud message: Stay away!
Greek border police are firing bursts of deafening noise from an armored truck over the frontier into Turkey. Mounted on the vehicle, the long-range acoustic device, or “sound cannon,” is the size of a small TV set but can match the volume of a jet engine.
It’s part of a vast array of physical and experimental new digital barriers being installed and tested during the quiet months of the coronavirus pandemic at the 200-kilometer (125-mile) Greek border with Turkey to stop people entering the European Union illegally.
Read:Boris Johnson, fiancée Carrie Symonds wed in London
A new steel wall, similar to recent construction on the U.S.-Mexico border, blocks commonly-used crossing points along the Evros River that separates the two countries.
Nearby observation towers are being fitted with long-range cameras, night vision, and multiple sensors. The data will be sent to control centers to flag suspicious movement using artificial intelligence analysis.
“We will have a clear ‘pre-border’ picture of what’s happening,” Police Maj. Dimonsthenis Kamargios, head of the region’s border guard authority, told the Associated Press.
The EU has poured 3 billion euros ($3.7 billion) into security tech research following the refugee crisis in 2015-16, when more than 1 million people — many escaping wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan — fled to Greece and on to other EU countries.
The automated surveillance network being built on the Greek-Turkish border is aimed at detecting migrants early and deterring them from crossing, with river and land patrols using searchlights and long-range acoustic devices.
Key elements of the network will be launched by the end of the year, Kamargios said. “Our task is to prevent migrants from entering the country illegally. We need modern equipment and tools to do that.”
Researchers at universities around Europe, working with private firms, have developed futuristic surveillance and verification technology, and tested more than a dozen projects at Greek borders.
AI-powered lie detectors and virtual border-guard interview bots have been piloted, as well as efforts to integrate satellite data with footage from drones on land, air, sea and underwater. Palm scanners record the unique vein pattern in a person’s hand to use as a biometric identifier, and the makers of live camera reconstruction technology promise to erase foliage virtually, exposing people hiding near border areas.
Testing has also been conducted in Hungary, Latvia and elsewhere along the eastern EU perimeter.
Read:In time for summer, Europe sees dramatic fall in virus cases
The more aggressive migration strategy has been advanced by European policymakers over the past five years, funding deals with Mediterranean countries outside the bloc to hold migrants back and transforming the EU border protection agency, Frontex, from a coordination mechanism to a full-fledged multinational security force.
But regional migration deals have left the EU exposed to political pressure from neighbors.
Earlier this month, several thousand migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in a single day, prompting Spain to deploy the army. A similar crisis unfolded on the Greek-Turkish border and lasted three weeks last year.
Greece is pressing the EU to let Frontex patrol outside its territorial waters to stop migrants reaching Lesbos and other Greek islands, the most common route in Europe for illegal crossing in recent years.
Armed with new tech tools, European law enforcement authorities are leaning further outside borders.
Not all the surveillance programs being tested will be included in the new detection system, but human rights groups say the emerging technology will make it even harder for refugees fleeing wars and extreme hardship to find safety.
Patrick Breyer, a European lawmaker from Germany, has taken an EU research authority to court, demanding that details of the AI-powered lie detection program be made public.
“What we are seeing at the borders, and in treating foreign nationals generally, is that it’s often a testing field for technologies that are later used on Europeans as well. And that’s why everybody should care, in their own self-interest,” Breyer of the German Pirates Party told the AP.
He urged authorities to allow broad oversight of border surveillance methods to review ethical concerns and prevent the sale of the technology through private partners to authoritarian regimes outside the EU.
Read:Rise in UK coronavirus cases stoke concerns over 3rd wave
Ella Jakubowska, of the digital rights group EDRi, argued that EU officials were adopting “techno-solutionism” to sideline moral considerations in dealing with the complex issue of migration.
“It is deeply troubling that, time and again, EU funds are poured into expensive technologies which are used in ways that criminalize, experiment with and dehumanize people on the move,” she said.
The London-based group Privacy International argued the tougher border policing would provide a political reward to European leaders who have adopted a hard line on migration.
“If people migrating are viewed only as a security problem to be deterred and challenged, the inevitable result is that governments will throw technology at controlling them,” said Edin Omanovic, an advocacy director at the group.
“It’s not hard to see why: across Europe we have autocrats looking for power by targeting foreigners, otherwise progressive leaders who have failed to come up with any alternatives to copying their agendas, and a rampant arms industry with vast access to decision-makers.”
Migration flows have slowed in many parts of Europe during the pandemic, interrupting an increase recorded over years. In Greece, for example, the number of arrivals dropped from nearly 75,000 in 2019 to 15,700 in 2020, a 78% decrease.
But the pressure is sure to return. Between 2000 and 2020, the world’s migrant population rose by more than 80% to reach 272 million, according to United Nations data, fast outpacing international population growth.
At the Greek border village of Poros, the breakfast discussion at a cafe was about the recent crisis on the Spanish-Moroccan border.
Many of the houses in the area are abandoned and in a gradual state of collapse, and life is adjusting to that reality.
Read:European regulators OK Pfizer vaccine for children 12-15
Cows use the steel wall as a barrier for the wind and rest nearby.
Panagiotis Kyrgiannis, a Poros resident, says the wall and other preventive measures have brought migrant crossings to a dead stop.
“We are used to seeing them cross over and come through the village in groups of 80 or a 100,” he said. “We were not afraid. ... They don’t want to settle here. All of this that’s happening around us is not about us.”
European regulators OK Pfizer vaccine for children 12-15
The European Medicines Agency on Friday recommended that the use of the coronavirus vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech be expanded to children ages 12 to 15, a decision that offers younger and less at-risk populations across the continent access to a COVID-19 shot for the first time.
The vaccine was the first one granted authorization across the European Union when it was licensed for use in anyone 16 and over in December. So far, about 173 million doses of the shot have been administered in the 27-nation bloc, about three quarters of the total given.
“Extending the protection of a safe and effective vaccine in this younger population is an important step forward in the fight against this pandemic,” said Marco Cavaleri, who heads the EMA body that reviewed the vaccine.
The EU regulator had received the necessary data to authorize the vaccine for younger teens and found it to be highly effective against infection, he said.
Also read: Bangladesh approves emergency use of Pfizer vaccine
In a study involving 2,000 adolescents in the United States, none of those who received the vaccine got COVID-19, compared with 16 in a control group who received a placebo, said Cavaleri.
“The vaccine was well tolerated and the side effect in this age group were very much similar (to) what we’ve seen in young adults and not raising major concern at this point in time,” he added.
The EMA decision needs to be rubber-stamped by the European Commission, and individual national regulators must decide whether the vaccine will be administered to children under 16.
The recommendation follows similar decisions by regulators in Canada and the U.S. last month, as rich countries slowly approach their vaccination targets for adults and look to immunize as many people as possible.
Also read: Britain yet to decide on Pfizer offer to vaccinate Olympians
Researchers will continue to monitor the shot’s long-term protection and safety in the children for another two years.
Most COVID-19 vaccines worldwide have been authorized for adults, who are at higher risk of severe disease and death from the coronavirus. But vaccinating children of all ages could be critical to stopping outbreaks, since some research has shown older children may play a role in spreading the virus even though they don’t typically fall seriously ill.
In the U.S., children represent about 14% of the country’s coronavirus cases and at least 316 have died, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Doctors have also identified a rare inflammatory syndrome in a very small proportion of children sickened by COVID-19.
Immunizing children against COVID-19 might also give authorities more confidence to reopen schools, as getting children to wear masks and engage in social distancing has been challenging at times.
Also read: Pfizer COVID-19 shot expanded to US children as young as 12
But the World Health Organization has criticized rich countries for moving on to vaccinate their younger and less at-risk populations, saying that the extremely limited number of COVID-19 vaccines should instead be shared with poor countries so they too can protect their health workers and those most vulnerable.
“I understand why some countries want to vaccinate their children and adolescents, but right now I urge them to reconsider and to instead donate vaccines to COVAX,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this month, referring to the U.N.-backed initiative to distribute vaccines fairly. Of the more than 1 billion COVID-19 shots administered globally, fewer than 2% have gone to poor countries.
Other vaccine makers also are studying whether their shots are safe and effective in children. Earlier this week, Moderna Inc. said its shot strongly protects children as young as 12; it said it would submit a request for emergency use authorization to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration next month. Another U.S. company, Novavax, has a COVID-19 vaccine in late-stage development and just began a study in 12- to 17-year-olds.
Both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have been testing their vaccines in children from age 11 down to six months; they get a lower dose than what teens and adults receive. China’s Sinovac has also submitted early data to the country’s regulators, hoping to prove its vaccine is safe in children as young as 3.
EU takes on AstraZeneca in court over vaccine deliveries
The European Union took on vaccine producer AstraZeneca in a Brussels court on Wednesday with the urgent demand that the company needs to make an immediate delivery of COVID-19 shots the bloc insists were already due.
AstraZeneca’s contract signed with the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, on behalf of member states foresaw an initial 300 million doses for distribution among all 27 countries, with an option for a further 100 million. The doses were expected to be delivered throughout 2021. But only 30 million were sent during the first quarter.
Deliveries have increased slightly since then but, according to the European Commission, the company is set to provide only 70 million doses in the second quarter. It had promised 180 million.
EU lawyer Rafael Jafferali told the court that the company now expects to deliver the total number of doses by the end of December, but he added that “with a six-month delay, it’s obviously a failure.”
Read: Malawi destroys 20,000 expired doses of AstraZeneca vaccine
His main argument is that AstraZeneca should have used production sites in the bloc and the U.K. for EU supplies as part of a “best reasonable effort” clause in the contract. He said that 50 million doses that should have been delivered to the EU went to third countries instead, “in violation” of their contract.
Jafferali has said that the company should use all four plants listed in their contract for deliveries to the EU.
He also accused the company of misleading the European Commission by providing data lacking clarity on the delivery delays.
“The information provided by AstraZeneca did not allow us to fully understand the situation before mid-March 2021,” he said.
The EU has insisted its gripes with the company are about deliveries only and has repeatedly said that it has no problems with the safety or quality of the vaccine itself. The shots have been approved by the European Medicines Agency, the EU’s drug regulator.
While the bloc insists AstraZeneca has breached its contractual obligations, the company says it has fully complied with the agreement, arguing that vaccines are difficult to manufacture and it made its best effort to deliver on time.
Lawyers for the company will address the court later Wednesday.
As part of an advanced purchase agreement with vaccine companies, the EU said it invested 2.7 billion euros ($3.8 billion), including 336 million ($408 million), to finance the production of AstraZeneca’s serum at four factories.
The long-standing dispute drew media attention for weeks earlier this year amid a deadly surge of coronavirus infections in Europe, when delays in vaccine production and deliveries hampered the EU’s vaccination campaign.
Cheaper and easier to use than rival shots from Pfizer-BioNTech, the AstraZeneca vaccine developed with Oxford University was a pillar of the EU’s vaccine rollout. But the EU’s partnership with the firm quickly deteriorated amid accusations it favored its relationship with British authorities.
While the U.K. made quick progress in its vaccination campaign thanks to the AstraZeneca shots, the EU faced embarrassing complaints and criticism for its slow start.
Concerns over the pace of the rollout across the EU grew after AstraZeneca said it couldn’t supply EU members with as many doses as originally anticipated because of production capacity limits.
Read:Indonesia suspends AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine batch after death
The health situation has dramatically improved in Europe in recent weeks, with the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths on a sharp downward trend as vaccination has picked up. About 300 million doses of vaccine have been delivered in Europe — a region with around 450 million inhabitants, with about 245 million already administered.
About 46% of the EU population have had at least one dose.
In total, the European Commission has secured more than 2.5 billion of vaccine doses with various manufacturers. It recently sealed another major order with Pfizer and BioNTech through 2023 for an additional 1.8 billion doses of their COVID-19 shot to share between the bloc’s countries.
Following Wednesday’s hearing, a second one is slated for Friday, with a judgment to be delivered at a date to be announced. In addition to the emergency action, the European Commission has launched a claim on the merits of the case for damages for which a hearing hasn’t yet been set by the court.
Eyeing variant, France mulls tighter limits for UK tourists
France may introduce stricter coronavirus restrictions for British visitors when tourism reopens this summer to prevent the spread of a worrying virus variant first detected in India and causing concern in Britain, authorities said Sunday.
The possibility of tighter restrictions for British tourists was raised Sunday by Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
The minister suggested that Britain could be put in a health category of its own, somewhere in between the strictest measures that France is imposing on visitors from India and 15 other countries, and more relaxed requirements being readied for visitors from the European Union and some other countries.
Without giving specifics, Le Drian said “health measures that are a bit stronger” could be applied for British tourists.
The minister indicated that the government in Paris is watching how the situation develops before making up its mind.
Read:Clinic helps long-haul patients in London’s “COVID triangle”
“We hope that the variant can be controlled in a country which experienced real failures during the pandemic,” he said.
“However, the arrival of the Indian variant and the increase of cases of Indian variant in the United Kingdom pose a problem and so we are vigilant about this (and) in contact with the British authorities,” he added.
“It won’t be the red treatment if we have to do it. It will be an intermediate treatment,” the minister said. “But it is not excluded — this springs to mind because of British tourists — that we have health measures that are a bit stronger.”
From Sunday, Germany already started requiring people arriving from the U.K. to go into quarantine for 14 days. The decision announced last Friday responded to the spread in Britain of the Indian variant.
Under the tighter rules, airlines and others will also only be able to transport German citizens and residents from Britain.
Sanofi-GSK reports success in virus vaccine, after setback
Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline’s potential COVID-19 vaccine triggered strong immune responses in all adult age groups in preliminary trials, boosting optimism the shot may join the fight against the pandemic this year.
After two doses of the vaccine candidate, participants showed neutralizing antibodies in line with those found in people who had recovered from the disease, according to results of the Phase 2 trial released Monday. The drugmakers said they plan to begin late-stage trials and production in the coming weeks and hope to win regulatory approval for the vaccine before the end of 2021.
Read: Indonesia suspends AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine batch after death
Regulators have already authorized a number of COVID-19 vaccines, though experts say more are needed as public health authorities around the world race to vaccinate their residents amid a pandemic that has already killed more than 3.3 million people and caused economic havoc.
The Sanofi-GSK vaccine was an important part of the European Union’s vaccination strategy, and had notably been championed by French President Emmanuel Macron’s government. But researchers had to reformulate it after early testing produced an inadequate immune response in older people.
The Sanofi-GSK candidate joins about a dozen vaccines now undergoing late-stage trials. The companies plan to produce up to 1 billion doses annually, and they have signed agreements to supply the U.S., Canada and developing countries, too. Public health experts say several vaccines will be needed to end the pandemic, because of the challenges in rapidly producing and distributing enough doses to vaccinate billions of people.
“We know multiple vaccines will be needed, especially as variants continue to emerge and the need for effective and booster vaccines, which can be stored at normal temperatures increases,” said Thomas Triomphe, head of Sanofi’s vaccines unit.
Read:India to begin Covaxin vaccine trials for children
The results released Monday were from a Phase 2 trial involving 722 volunteers aged 18 to 95 who were recruited in the U.S. and Honduras.
The late-stage trial will involve about 37,000 participants from countries around the world, the companies said.
EU says US stand on patent virus waiver is no ‘magic bullet’
European Union leaders cranked up their criticism of the U.S. call to waive COVID-19 vaccine patents Saturday, arguing the move would yield no short-term or intermediate improvement in vaccine supplies and could even have a negative impact.
On the second day of an EU summit in Portugal, the European leaders instead urged Washington to lift export restrictions if it wants to have a global impact on the pandemic.
“We don’t think, in the short term, that it’s the magic bullet,” European Council President Charles Michel said. French President Emmanuel Macron insisted that giving any priority now to a discussion of intellectual property rights “is a false debate.”
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, home to many Big Pharma companies, went the farthest of all, cautioning that relaxing patent rules could harm efforts to adapt vaccines as the coronavirus mutates.
“I see more risks than opportunities,” Merkel said. “I don’t believe that releasing patents is the solution to provide vaccines for more people.”
Instead, the leaders joined previous EU calls for U.S. President Joe Biden to start boosting U.S. vaccine exports as a way to contain the global COVID-19 crisis, insisting that move was the most urgent need.
“I’m very clearly urging the U.S. to put an end to the ban on exports of vaccines and on components of vaccines that are preventing them being produced,” Macron said.
He mentioned the German company CureVac, saying it could not produce a vaccine in Europe because the necessary components were blocked in the United States. Hundreds of components can go into a vaccine.
Merkel said she hoped that “now that large parts of the American population have been vaccinated, there will be a free exchange of (vaccine) ingredients.”
“Europe has always exported a large part of its European (vaccine) production to the world, and that should become the rule,” the longtime German leader said.
While the U.S. has kept a tight lid on exports of American-made vaccines so it can inoculate its own population first, the EU has become the world’s leading provider, allowing about as many doses to go outside the 27-nation bloc as are kept for its 446 million inhabitants.
The EU has distributed about 200 million doses within the bloc while about the same amount has been exported abroad to almost 90 countries. Former EU member Britain has acted similarly to the U.S.,
“First of all, you must open up,” Macron said in addressing the United States. “First of all, the Anglo-Saxons must stop their bans on exports.”
The EU is trying to regain the diplomatic initiative on vaccines after Biden put it on the back foot with his surprising endorsement of lifting patent protections on COVID-19 vaccines, seeking to solve the problem of getting shots into the arms of people in poorer countries.
Macron and other EU leaders have insisted that production capacity first must be ramped up by reconverting factories so they can quickly start producing vaccines through a transfer of technology.
“Today, there is not a factory in the world that cannot produce doses for poor countries because of a patent issue,” Macron said.
Developed nations should also increase vaccine donations to poorer countries, the EU leaders say in arguing that talking about patent waivers alone won’t cut it.
“We are willing to go into that discussion, but then we need a real 360-degree view on it,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
EU leaders attend summit in person for 1st time this year
On the list of things not to do during a pandemic, holding big international gatherings is close to the top.
But European Union leaders and their large following of diplomats and advisers are meeting in Portugal on Friday for two days of talks, sending a signal that they see the threat from COVID-19 on their continent as waning, amid a quickening vaccine rollout.
Their talks hope to repair some of the damage the coronavirus has caused in the bloc, in such areas as welfare and employment. In a late addition to their agenda, EU leaders will also discuss Thursday’s U.S. proposal to share the technology behind COVID-19 vaccines to help speed the end of the pandemic.
The leaders will also take part in an unprecedented meeting, via videoconference, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose country needs more help with a devastating virus surge — and who can smooth the path to an elusive bilateral trade deal.
Like across much of the world, COVID-19 forced high-level political talks to move online over the past year in Europe. This is the 27-nation bloc’s first face-to-face summit in five months, after an exceptional meeting in Brussels last December to discuss post-pandemic spending. Another in-person summit, in Brussels, is planned for later this month.
EU leaders appear keen to “try and convey a sense of normalcy, of slowly returning to normal,” says Antonio Barroso, a political analyst at Teneo, a global advisory firm.
That is a key consideration for southern EU countries like Portugal, Spain and Greece, where tourism is an economic mainstay.
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Despite a slow start to its inoculation drive, the EU this week passed the milestone of 150 million vaccinations and reckons it can reach what it calls “sufficient community immunity” in two months’ time. The European Commission proposes relaxing restrictions on travel to the bloc this summer.
Who can move around, when and where remains a sensitive question for Europeans, however. Pandemic improvements have been uneven across the continent, and many Europeans remain subject to irksome restrictions. In a political nod to those concerns, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte won’t travel to Portugal.
And as a reminder of the risks, Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela won’t be attending because he is in quarantine after his wife tested positive on Wednesday.
Pandemic fundamentals remain unchanged: those attending the summit must show negative PCR tests for COVID-19, while social distancing and mask-wearing are required.
The summit will make a splash in the picturesque Atlantic coast city of Porto, with a population of just over 200,000. Most of the city’s hotels have been shut since last spring due to COVID-19, and local gripes about streets being overcrowded with tourists now seem a distant memory.
With the pandemic exposing inequalities and bringing greater hardship in the bloc, the talks in Porto will initially look at how to ensure EU citizens are guaranteed their rights in such areas as employment support, gender equality and social services.
“COVID has taken the covers off and shown the gaps” in care, says Laura Rayner, a policy analyst at the European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think tank.
“So many people, through no fault of their own, have found themselves requiring some support,” she said.
“There’s certainly more awareness on the street” of the need for a social safety net and “it would be naïve of politicians to ignore that,” she added.
The EU is looking for endorsement in Porto of three headline targets: an EU employment rate of at least 78%, at least 60% of adults attending training courses every year, and reducing the number of those at risk of poverty or social exclusion by at least 15 million people, including 5 million children.
The push for social safeguards, largely led by center-left EU governments, has caused some tension within the bloc. Last month, 11 governments welcomed the Porto effort but warned central EU authorities against meddling in national policies — a clash of interests that has long dogged the bloc.
On Saturday, the leaders will hold an online summit with India’s Modi covering trade, climate change and help with India’s COVID-19 surge. Some EU countries have already sent medicine and equipment to India.
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India and the EU spent six years trying to negotiate a free trade deal before giving up in 2013. Among the thorny issues were vehicle parts and digital privacy.
Plans for a face-to-face EU-India summit in Porto fell through after Modi canceled his trip due to the pandemic, but it is the first time an Indian leader will participate in a meeting with all the EU’s leaders.