Seeing eye-to-eye

When the UK exit the EU last year with an 11th-hour trade deal, there was some hope, no matter how misplaced, that the EU and UK would eventually be able to settle their differences and shore up their diplomatic ties once again. In hindsight, this is the same sort of wishful thinking that was engaged in by the UK Government when considering the financial damage that Brexit would do to the UK economy.

A short way into 2021 and the relationship between the EU and UK is arguably the thorniest than it has ever been. Not only have the two sides clashed over certain aspects of the Brexit deal but are now also clashing over Covid vaccines. In the latest move, the UK has expressed outrage over comments made by the EU Council President Charles Michel that Britain had outright banned the export of vaccines produced in its territory. When there was a pushback from the EU side regarding his comment, Michel doubled down, stating that there are "different ways" of imposing vaccine bans. His specific allegation was that the UK has a secret UK-first clause with vaccine maker AstraZeneca.

Both sides have made accusations of vaccine nationalism against one another. As may be recalled, the original tiff regarding vaccines started when the EU had expressed its displeasure over receiving fewer AstraZeneca vaccines than it expected earlier this year. The EU had threatened to block the export of all vaccines from its soil to outside countries until the vaccine maker fulfils its obligations to EU nations. The UK, which was set to receive a shipment from AstraZeneca at that time, had accused the EU of vaccine nationalism then. Following the spate, the EU had instituted a controversial new export law that would allow EU nations to screen vaccine exports leaving their borders and to hold them up in the case that the vaccine maker had not fulfilled its obligations with the EU nation. The UK, like many other countries, had noted that this new law could be detrimental to global vaccination efforts and was contrary to the EU's earlier position of the world being 'united' in the fight against the pandemic.

It would not be too long after when Italy would use this controversial new law to block AstraZeneca vaccines from leaving its borders to Australia after it felt like it was shortchanged by the vaccine maker. Parallel but also related to the vaccine fiasco, the EU has been feuding with the UK over the finer points of the Brexit agreement, particularly in relation to the Northern Ireland border. Under the Brexit agreement, Northern Ireland was to remain within the EU's single market for goods to prevent the presence of any hard border between the two Irelands. This effectively made Northern Ireland the frontier between the EU and the UK. Concerned over what it saw as backchannel movements to peddle vaccines across the border, the EU moved to secure new export controls on its Irish border. While it ultimately did not go through with the measure, the damage was done. Apparently, emboldened by the confusion within the EU and the bad press from outside, the UK pushed to unilaterally make its own changes to the so-called Northern Ireland protocol when it announced that it was going to extend the grace period for checks on supermarket food moving across the border till October. It argued that this extended grace period would give businesses time to adjust to the new rules. The EU cried foul however and stated that the UK had once again broken international law by unilaterally breaching an agreement with the EU.

All these points towards a relationship that has gone from below-the-surface tension to open accusations and rebukes. Now, both the EU and UK have separately called for a reset of ties and resolution of their differences. Diplomats on both sides are urging level-headed diplomacy as the EU and UK will very much benefit from holding close relations with each other. Beyond shared history and culture, the EU and UK are also tied together as economic partners, though the Brexit deal has derailed this to a certain extent. The 'growing pains' of Brexit, as some experts have called it, are yet to fully manifest and yet there is an indication that there will be significant economic consequences to both sides that will become apparent in the future. Only together can they be mitigated to a certain extent, perhaps as the UK has suggested, through the refinement of the Brexit deal.