Ursula von der Leyen said the decision to trigger Article 16 was an error but did not take personal responsibility
Credit: REUTERS
Ursula von der Leyen has refused to apologise for the vaccines row that led to Brussels threatening a hard border on the island of Ireland and demanded she only be judged in three years time when her term of office is over.
The underfire European Commission president made clear she would not quit over the fiasco and defended the slow pace of the EU’s vaccination rollout compared to Britain, insisting it was “safer” in newspaper interviews aimed at quelling growing criticism of her across the bloc.
Mrs von der Leyen, whose time as Germany’s defence minister was dogged by failure, was asked how things had gone so badly wrong a week after her commission attacked AstraZeneca for failing to fulfil vaccine orders.
"People are very stressed by the ongoing corona pandemic. I fully understand that anger and emotions", she said, “In politics there are always ups and downs and even more so in times of crisis, but what matters is the final assessment".
"Let’s wait until the end of the term to see the successes and mistakes and then we will take stock," Mrs von der Leyen, whose five year term finishes at the end of 2024, added.
The commission launched an unprecedented attack on Astrazeneca last week after the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company said it could only supply a quarter of the jabs it had aimed for in the first quarter of the year.
Brussels accused AstraZeneca of breaching its contract and, amid suspicions it had supplied EU vaccine stock to the UK, launched plans to force all EU vaccine manufacturers to ask for permission before exporting jabs out of the bloc.
Mrs von der Leyen said the decision to trigger Article 16 of the Brexit treaty’s Northern Ireland Protocol was an error but did not take personal responsibility for the error, which was designed to prevent vaccines being smuggled to Britain from Northern Ireland if there was an EU vaccine export ban.
She was forced into a humiliating climbdown on Friday night after being called by Boris Johnson and Ireland’s prime minister over the move, which would have created a hard border on the island.
“I know how sensitive the Irish subject is. But when you take urgent decisions — in this year of crisis, the Commission has taken almost 900 — there is always a risk of missing something. I am relieved that we were able to find a solution,” she said.
On Monday, her spokesman pinned the blame on her trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis but it is widely known in Brussels that Mrs von der Leyen took personal charge of the AstraZeneca affair.
Mrs von der Leyen said that the “worst” of the row with AstraZeneca was over after the company promised to provide an extra nine million jabs and begin deliveries a week earlier.
But she insisted the company would be forced to fulfil its contract to provide up to 400 million vaccines to the bloc.
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