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Politico (22 March 2021)

By David M. Herszenhorn And Jakob Hanke Vela

European Commission officials on Monday reiterated a barrage of vague threats about blocking coronavirus vaccine exports but could not explain what precisely they planned to do, when they planned to do it or how it would actually lead to more doses injected into EU citizens' arms. 

So after yet another day of far more questions than answers about the EU’s slow-rolling vaccine campaign, only this much was clear: the continued stumbling in Brussels was not going to stop the grumbling among citizens and EU national leaders ahead of a virtual European Council summit on Thursday.  

The Commission’s threats, which President Ursula von der Leyen first articulated last week, are nominally directed at the U.K. — the one vaccine-producing nation that has been receiving doses produced on the European Continent, but, by all accounts, is not exporting any doses produced domestically.

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