EU’s vaccine failures were sadly predictable

In May 1953, an American student had the nerve to go and speak to Winston Churchill at the Queen’s coronation lunch. When he nervously asked the great man if he had any advice about life, Churchill instantly replied: “Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.”
This great piece of intellectual counsel is what makes the EU’s current vaccination debacle so entirely predictable, at both the individual and the systemic level. Given the long, dismal record of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, specifically, and the sclerotic, intellectually uninspired Brussels bureaucracy in general, it cannot be a surprise to any semi-competent political risk analyst that the EU has failed this vital test.
The numbers do not lie. The beginning of February found that the EU had inoculated just 2 percent of its adult population, while the UK had managed to safeguard 12 percent. A forecast made by the data analytics firm Airfinity estimated that the UK would achieve herd immunity by vaccinating 75 percent of its population by July 14 of this year, the US by Aug. 9, with the EU bringing up the rear on Oct. 21. As the first-rate German newspaper Die Zeit mournfully observed, the European Commission has unwittingly provided “the best advertisement for Brexit: It is acting slowly, bureaucratically and in a protectionist manner. And if something goes wrong, it’s everyone else’s fault.”
I have long followed Von der Leyen’s over-promoted career with horrified fascination, because such a dysfunctional history leads to the easiest of political risk predictions: As whatever she touches turns to lead, her ascension to the Commission presidency means that her tenure has just been an accident waiting to happen. The EU has long suffered (with a few notable exceptions, such as the dynamic Jacques Delors) from poor leadership, as third-rate leaders like Von der Leyen fail nationally, only to be farmed out to Brussels, “promoted” to limit the damage they can do to their own countries.
Von der Leyen’s prior disastrous tenure as German defense minister should have been all the warning the world needed to know that she was not remotely capable of leading Europe through the worst crisis of the 21st century. While head of the German Ministry of Defense, the German army used broomsticks rather than guns during one NATO joint exercise as there were no weapons to be found. Germany’s special forces became a hotbed of right-wing extremism, an outrage she responded to tardily and grudgingly.
Worst of all, serious procurement scandals — of over-priced military kit being delivered late, over-budget, and sometimes not at all — marred her reputation to the point that Chancellor Angela Merkel was compelled to tactfully move her ally to Brussels. To put it mildly, procurement — the absolute key to any vaccination strategy — has never been Von der Leyen’s strong suit. To understand her historically documented ineptitude is to see that the current calamity was foreordained.
If Von der Leyen has failed personally, the collective history of how the EU bureaucracy works (and doesn’t) also makes a prediction of its present catastrophic vaccination failure obvious. During a crisis, operational speed and analytical rigor are vital. The EU has, time and time again, proven itself incapable of either fleetness or precision in its decision-making. Its systemic bureaucratic failures — always there for the eye to see — have disastrously now come home to roost.
The basic EU management problems are clear: It was relatively slow to sign contracts with the pharmaceutical companies developing the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines and it did not hedge its risk by engaging enough of them. While Brussels was obsessing about negotiating the vaccination price, it ruinously failed to take into account the need for speed or breadth of supply. Whereas the UK government signed manufacturing contracts with a plethora of pharmaceutical firms that might be capable of quickly producing a vaccine — effectively spreading the risk in this endemically uncertain industry — the EU disastrously limited its suppliers. For example, Novavax last week announced that it has successfully developed another COVID-19 vaccine, supplementing the present market. The UK has pre-ordered 60 million doses of it; the EU, zero.

The EU has, time and time again, proven itself incapable of either fleetness or precision in its decision-making.

Dr. John C. Hulsman

In terms of the present market, the EU’s characteristic glacial slowness has been devastating. Brussels approved the effective AstraZeneca vaccine just this past week, after delaying placing orders for it by a crucial two to three months compared to the US and the UK. Its tardiness left it at the back of the queue. Not until the autumn of 2020 did Brussels even deign to place orders for the homegrown Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. It was even later in placing orders for the Moderna jabs.
Crises clarify. In the case of the EU generally, and Von der Leyen specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic — the greatest political risk test of the new century — has found them out. The future consequences for Europe are as predictable as Brussels’ present failures: An increase in political populism and instability (especially in France and Italy), tragically more deaths, and a far deeper, more dangerous recession, as government debt rates skyrocket, leaving the EU a greatly wounded power. Sadly, using the prism of history, all this is predictable.

• Dr. John C. Hulsman is the president and managing partner of John C. Hulsman Enterprises, a prominent global political risk consulting firm. He is also senior columnist for City AM, the newspaper of the City of London. He can be contacted via chartwellspeakers.com.