How Europe can rebuild multilateralism after covid-19

• The pandemic has brought forward a new agenda for multilateralism, focused on areas including global health, economic recovery, climate, technology and trade.
• The EU should pursue a twin-track strategy, seeking to revitalise institutions that include rival powers while promoting deeper cooperation with like-minded countries.
• Europe should launch an initiative to build up global vaccine manufacturing and encourage free movement of medical goods and set up a “preparedness club” of countries committed to transparency in their health systems.

In his latest report “How Europe can rebuild multilateralism after covid-19” ECFR’s research director and senior policy fellow Anthony Dworkin sets out how the covid-19 pandemic has led to a new agenda for multilateralism. 

A realistic vision of multilateralism should accept that European leaders have a particular responsibility to their own populations. They cannot be expected to pass up the chance to procure vaccines for their citizens more quickly than less wealthy countries. However, this approach should be combined with efforts to ensure that poor and middle-income countries are not completely left behind:

• If Europeans remain focused only on securing doses for their own population and neglect the problems of global distribution, their rhetoric about vaccine multilateralism will ring hollow.
• Europe could also suffer geopolitically, as other powers like India, China and Russia use the distribution of vaccines (i.e. in Asia and the Western Balkans) to enhance their image and gain political advantage.
• Leaving poor and middle-income countries with insufficient vaccines could encourage the emergence of new variants of the virus, setting back the world’s recovery.
• An increased use of export restrictions could trigger further countermeasures along the complex supply chains involved in vaccine production. The damage this could cause outweighs the EU’s need to block exports.

Key recommendations for the EU are:

• The EU should use its international influence to increase global vaccine manufacturing capacity and reduce barriers to trade in vaccine-related goods. It made a start in this direction by joining with a number of like-minded countries as part of the Ottawa Group to launch a trade and health initiative that called for limits on the use of export restrictions. Any further actions to block vaccine exports from Europe would undercut that commitment. 
• The bloc should launch a new initiative, perhaps through the G20, that brings together the small number of vaccine-producing countries along with big manufacturers and funders to work on scaling up manufacturing capacity and diversifying production.
• The EU should step up its efforts to distribute vaccines globally in other ways. The EU recently doubled its financial contribution to COVAX. But while lower- and middle-income countries wait to receive their COVAX allocations, the EU should also begin to share some of its supply, setting aside a limited share of vaccine deliveries it receives.

“It is understandable that the EU should feel disadvantaged by the arrangements other countries have made, but an increased use of export restrictions could trigger further countermeasures along the complex supply chains involved in vaccine production. The damage this could cause outweighs the EU’s need to block exports, given that is expecting to receive a significant number of further doses in the second quarter of 2021”, Anthony Dworkin says.

About the author:   

Anthony Dworkin is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He leads the organisation’s work in the areas of human rights, democracy, and multilateralism. Among other subjects, Dworkin has conducted research and written on European and US frameworks for counterterrorism, the European Union’s human rights strategy, and the pursuit of justice in the international response to mass atrocities. Since 2011, he has also followed political developments in North Africa after the Arab uprisings, with a particular focus on Egypt and Tunisia.

Media enquiries:    

Anthony Dworkin is available for comment and interview. For all requests, please contact ECFR’s communications director Ana Ramic ana.ramic@ecfr.eu.