Italy Blocks an Export Shipment of AstraZeneca Vaccine Headed for Australia

Italy blocked a shipment of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from being flown to Australia on Thursday, making good on the European Union’s recent threats to clamp down on exports of the shots and ratcheting up a global tug of war over vaccine supplies.

It was the first time that a member country used new E.U. regulations to keep vaccine from being exported. The shipment consisted of more than 250,000 doses.

Italy’s foreign ministry said that Italy acted because Australia is regarded as a “nonvulnerable” country under the new regulations; because vaccines are in short supply in Italy and the European Union generally; and because of delays in AstraZeneca’s vaccine deliveries to the bloc’s member countries.

The new regulations empower the E.U.’s members to keep any vaccine doses made within the bloc from being sent abroad if the manufacturer has not yet met its supply obligations to member countries. Pfizer and AstraZeneca are the two companies currently manufacturing vaccines within the bloc.

So far, the European Commission has approved 174 requests for export authorizations.

Australia has had fewer coronavirus cases, relative to its size, than almost any other large developed country, and has been recently averaging only nine new cases a day, according to a New York Times database. Italy, with more than double the population of Australia, is averaging more than 18,000 new cases a day.

AstraZeneca applied on Feb. 24 for an authorization for the Australia shipment. Two days later, Italy told the European Commission it intended to deny the application, the foreign ministry said in statement Thursday night. After the commission offered no objection, the ministry said it notified AstraZeneca of the denial on Tuesday.

For earlier shipments, “Italy gave its authorization because they were small quantities aimed at activities of scientific research,” the foreign ministry said. “However, this time it was 250,700 doses.”

AstraZeneca declined to comment.

The company infuriated E.U. officials in January when it said it would significantly cut its planned February and March deliveries to member nations. They accused the company of sending doses to Britain that had been promised to the European Union, in breach of contractual obligations.

Valdis Dombrovskis, a top commission official, said in announcing the new export control regulations that the situation had “left us with no choice other than to act.”

The commission has maintained that the controls are about transparency, not vaccine nationalism. But with Europe’s sluggish vaccination campaigns lagging behind those of other developed nations and the bloc growing desperate for doses, member countries have signaled a willingness to use the rules for their own benefit.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy pressed fellow European leaders in a meeting last week to use all tools at hand to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for delays in delivering doses.