The EU’s ugly vaccine nationalism

We have to rid the world of vaccine nationalism. No one is protected until we are all protected. And we need, above all, solidarity to fight a virus which by its nature does not respect borders or boundaries. Over much of the last year, European Union officials, led by the President of the Commission Ursula von der Leyen, have led the world in grandiose rhetoric about how we have to lead a global effort to fight Covid-19, contrasting its own noble internationalism with the grubby self-interest of the likes of Donald Trump or indeed Boris Johnson. But hold on. After much speculation, the EU has itself started firing the first shots in the vaccine wars, permitting Italy to block the export of 250,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab to Australia. It turns out that when it comes to petty nationalism, the EU leads the world. Surely the point has come where global leaders, led by President Biden, should condemn its insularity.