Coronavirus, ventilators and why the EU’s piddling procurement scheme was not going to save us

Critics of the Government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis were beside themselves with glee when it was revealed last week that the UK, either by accident or design, had failed to participate in the European Commission’s joint procurement scheme for the purchase and distribution of such necessities as ventilators and surgical masks.

But google the subject, and there is almost nothing. In France, where I live, there is plenty in Le Monde about the European stability pact, the closing of frontiers and support from Brussels for full-on action by member states, but nothing I could see on the joint procurement scheme. Perhaps I wasn’t scanning page 94.

Instead, what I find is a UK-based anti-government onslaught on Facebook and Twitter, as well as in sections of the national press, denouncing the stupidity and cynicism of messrs Johnson, Hancock and Gove for looking Europe’s gift horse in the mouth.

The latest, detailed information issued by the French Government on Friday, in which it lists all that is being done and can be expected to be done in the coming weeks, makes no mention of the scheme, or indeed the EU. Only in Britain are the knives being sharpened.

If we were to listen to the critics, the Commission president Ursula von der Leyen was the answer to the prayers of a beleaguered continent. She had exactly what Britain required. She had more ventilators, face masks and surgical opera gloves than you could shake a stethoscope at. But Britain, led by the Man with the Iron Heart, wasn’t having any of it – literally. Brexit meant Brexit and Britain would cough quietly behind the White Cliffs of Dover.

So let me ask the obvious question. Where were these millions of ventilators and other items of crisis equipment supposed to come from? Was there some previously unexplored emporium, stocking respirators the way Amazon stocks thrillers by Dan Brown? Does Italy now have the ventilators it needs? What about Spain? Germany has by far the most, but makes them itself and has restricted the number that can be exported.

Face masks are in dangerously short supply in France, as they are in most countries of the world, each of which is trying to secure everything it needs from a finite supply. Has the EU yet delivered a single ventilator to anybody? What about in Greece? Twelve years on from the financial crash, are coronavirus patients there now wheezing the praises of Brussels?

You want to know the details of the EU joint procurement scheme? Well, here it is, extracted from Euractiv, an organisation part-funded by the EU, staffed largely by former Commission officials:

The Joint Procurement of medical countermeasures was set up back in 2010 following the outbreak of the H1N1 pandemic influenza that exposed weaknesses in the access to and purchasing of vaccines and medication at the time.

The goal is to ensure security of supply and more equitable prices for member states.

Prior to launching the joint procurement, the Commission announced that protective equipment exports outside the EU would be subject to an export authorisation, “to protect the availability of supplies,” for at least six weeks.

[Earlier this month], the European Commission announced it would create a €50 million worth stockpile financed by the EU at 90% … the stockpile will include intensive care medical equipment such as ventilators, personal protective equipment (reusable masks), vaccines and therapeutics and laboratory supplies.

All these initiatives are part of the EU’s efforts aimed at fulfilling the need of the member states’ health services fighting the spread of COVID-19 in the continent and overwhelmed by the scope of the outbreak.

€50 million! For a union, including the UK, of 500 million people. That’s €10 each. And note that the scheme was set up ten years ago, but never, it seems, got off the ground.

As you might expect, Brussels regards it as a huge success. According to Von der Leyen, speaking last week, this was EU solidarity in action. “It shows that being part of the Union pays off. This material should soon provide considerable relief in Italy, Spain and in 23 more member states.”

We are then told that the equipment should be available two weeks after the member states sign the contracts with the bidders, which they should do “very rapidly”. So we’re talking about the first arrivals sometime in April.

Now I am a strong supporter of the EU and a long-standing opponent of Brexit. I have also written many times about the unsuitability of Boris Johnson for high office. But the role of Brussels in combating the coronavirus is marginal. The Commission does not run a health service anymore than it builds schools, houses or cars. Leavers never understood this, and nor, it turns out, did many Remainers. It has a useful backroom role and will be central to European economic reconstruction in the years to come. But in the midst of the present emergency it is remote from the front line.

In terms of cooperation, Germany has shown the way, providing hospital beds for victims of the virus from France and Italy. But it is the governments of the member states that are bearing the brunt of the burden.

Very few of these will emerge with credit from the crisis, not least that of the UK, which reacted slowly and fitfully before getting to grips with the situation. The years of austerity, during which the NHS was denied the intensive care it so desperately needed, are coming home to roost.

But does anyone wish they were living in Italy or Spain rather than Britain at this time? Is France on top of things, or the Netherlands, or Sweden (where only now are they getting around to lockdown), or Ireland, where they only stopped horse-racing last Wednesday?

Or what about Greece? Here is one report I saw this morning, from something called Apostolis Fotiadis, part of something else called balkaninsight.com:

Greece is doubling down on restrictive measures to contain the spread of Covid-19 but faces criticism over the capacity of the healthcare system to treat the most vulnerable members of Greek society.

Sunday saw the largest single-day increase in confirmed coronavirus cases in the country by 94 to a total of 624.

Some fear the relatively low number of confirmed cases is a reflection of the state’s strategy to carry out tests on only the most acute, contrary to World Health Organisation calls for countries to conduct more aggressive testing and contact-tracing.

True or not true? I have no idea. I don’t live there. But obviously the prime minister and his ministers should all be hanged.

The fact is, there will be time later for Nuremberg-style trials. Can you imagine it? While maintaining a safe distance from each other, lawyers must be licking their chops. But right now, every government is demanding, and should receive, the support of its citizens. In the UK, if not Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock, Michael Gove, Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, then who? Jeremy Corbyn?