In a post just released, I reviewed the EU position on its vaccine export authorization program presented at the recent WTO General Council meeting where the EU stated no export request had been blocked. That is no longer true as reviewed in a Financial Times piece released earlier today. See Financial Times, Italy blocks shipment of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia, |March 4, 2021, https://www.ft.com/content/bed655ac-9285-486a-b5ad-b015284798c8?desktop=true&segmentId=d8d3e364-5197-20eb-17cf-2437841d178a. The vaccine supplier is Oxford/AstraZeneca which is a company who has shipped only a part of the quantity promised to the EU thus far and been subject to a public argument with the European Commission. Italy apparently notified the EU at the end of last week (and hence ahead of the EU statement to the General Council this week). As the EU didn’t object, Italy was allowed to block the export. According to the Financial Times, “Italy’s foreign ministry said that it had requested that the commission block the export of 250,700 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia because the latter was considered a ‘non-vulnerable’ country. It also cited ‘the high number of vaccine doses covered by the request . . . compared to the quantity of doses supplied so far to Italy and, more generally, to EU countries.'”
Expect significant backlash against the EU at the WTO.