Export-control panel: the EU meets on vaccines

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Hello and welcome to the intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. The President of Congo Brazzaville has been in power for almost 37 years. Unsurprisingly, he's just won another election. Our correspondent takes a look at how the country is faring under a ruler only half jokingly called the Emperor. And Europe's history is peppered with grand families and hereditary titles, all very noble and romantic. But here's the thing. There was a lot of inbreeding, and now researchers have shown how inbred rulers weren't very good ones. First up, though. Today, European Union leaders will hold a virtual summit to discuss improvements to the bloc's vaccine rollout. The most contentious topic will be plans to increase Europe's ability to block exports of vaccines. The proposed legislation was unveiled Yesterday by the EU's trade chief, Valdis Dombroskis.

The commission has adopted and implementing regulation to adapt an export authorization mechanism for vaccines with the aim of preserving the security of our supply chains.

The wording is general, but the intent specific. The proposal comes as a battle plays out between the EU and the British Swedish company AstraZeneca, which has been accused of failing to honour its supply contract with Europe.

The move marks a sharp escalation in the EU's response to a floundering vaccination rollout at home, beset by delivery delays, supply issues and a third wave of the disease.

Britain would be hardest hit by those new rules because so far it's benefited the most from Europe's vaccine exports. But yesterday, Britain and the EU issued a joint statement aiming for a win win situation that would boost supplies for both. That might sound like a cooling of tensions, but the vaccine row has been long in coming and marks another jolt on an already bumpy road to a post Brexit relationship.

What the European Union wants to do is to give itself the power to block or reduce exports of vaccines, which it has already. But it's strengthening this to do it, particularly in the case of exports to a country whose vaccination record is better, as they've done more vaccines than the eu, or to a country that has taken exports from the EU but has not exported anything in return.

John Peat is our political and Brexit editor.

Those two factors seem particularly applied to the uk.

And is there broad support for these controls throughout the eu?

I think there is a general concern in the EU that their record is quite poor on vaccination. They're much slower than many other rich countries, including the UK and the us, and so there is a feeling that maybe exporting a lot of vaccines has contributed to that problem. And it's strongly supported by France that there should be tougher controls, and to some extent by Italy. But there are some countries, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, that worry that if governments suddenly impose export controls on vaccines, that sends a bad signal to the pharmaceutical industry in general that they could be interfered with at a moment's notice.

And all of this seems to have arisen as part of a row between the EU, specifically about AstraZeneca and its vaccine. What's the stance of each side there? How is Britain involved in that part?

The AstraZeneca vaccine, it's a British Swedish company, developed jointly with Oxford University, is seen as a sort of British product. And AstraZeneca contracted with the British government to supply a lot of vaccines and it's fulfilled that contract. It also contracted to supply a lot of vaccines to the European Union, and because of some production difficulties, particularly in the Netherlands, the EU accuses it of not supplying the supplies that it contracted to deliver. So they're cross that AstraZeneca seems to be favouring Britain but not the EU. It's a slightly muddled picture, but it seems to be that the contract drawn up by the UK with AstraZeneca was more tightly drawn. It was more rigorous in demanding that it be fulfilled. The EU's contract with AstraZeneca seems to have been a little bit looser. And AstraZeneca says it hasn't broken that contract. It's just promised to do its best to deliver what it said it would deliver. And some people in the EU believe that the UK took advantage of that.

Right. And another wrinkle here, specifically having to do with the AstraZeneca vaccine were questions around safety and so on. How much has the politics of all this played into that kind of controversy, do you think?

I think it has been more difficult because there was a time when EU countries declared that there wasn't enough data to justify administering the AstraZeneca vaccine to over 65s. They then changed their minds. There was also a short period when it was said that AstraZeneca vaccines seem to be causing blood clots in a few patients. And that also has led to some resistance. And it's all somewhat overlaid politically by the perception that AstraZeneca is largely a sort of British concept. And the fact that Britain is also being more successful at rolling out its vaccines, I think has made AstraZeneca more controversial in the European Union than other makers of vaccines.

And how have British officials responded to these proposals for export bans? Do you think we're on the verge of a tit for tat war here?

There was suggestion at an earlier stage that if the EU started to interfere with vaccine exports, Britain could do the same. Some of the ingredients for vaccines come from Britain. If both sides were to impose controls, that would be bad for everybody. And I think overall, British officials and the Prime Minister have been careful to say the bans on vaccine exports would be a very bad idea. This is a very complicated industry with very extended supply chains. If governments start interfering with it, that could be highly damaging and could send very bad signals to those thinking of investing in the pharmaceutical business. And that is something that Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, underlined yesterday. I would just gently point out to anybody considering a blockade or an interruption of supply chains that companies may look at such actions and draw conclusions about whether or not it is sensible to make future investments in countries where arbitrary blockades are imposed. And because it's important in the end for both sides to work together, they have now issued a joint statement saying that they want to reciprocate critically beneficial relationship over tackling of COVID 19 and that what they're looking for is to create a win win situation. Which will expand vaccine supply for all citizens, both in the European Union and in Britain. I think that that means that the threat of real vaccine wars and bans on exports has probably been lifted for now and the two sides will try to work together. But there will continue to be quite bad feeling over how the vaccine is developed and some jealousy from the European side that Britain seems to have done much better, has vaccinated over 40% of its population, whereas the EU has only vaccinated about 13% of its population. So there will be a hangover even if there's not an immediate war over vaccine exports.

And how will that lingering bad feeling figure into what amounts to a lot more lingering bad feelings about Brexit and so on? The rocky relationship between Britain and the EU still being worked out.

I think the vaccine squabbles will feed in probably adversely to difficulties over the after effect of Brexit. Boris Johnson and the EU signed their post Brexit trade deal only in December. So we've only had the first three months of the new relationship with Britain outside both the single market and the Customs Union. And it's been quite rocky. Quite a lot of trade has been interfered with. Export volumes from the UK to the EU of goods have fallen by 40% in January over December and a number of sectors have suffered really quite badly.

So do you think the slightly mollifying statement yesterday about this vaccine row in particular is a sign of wishing to sort of patch things up in a more general.

Sen. Boris Johnson is fond of referring to EU countries as our friends and partners, but actually because of the lingering sort of bad feeling over Brexit and because sometimes having a confrontation with the European Union goes down well with British voters and the British press, I don't think that he will see much mileage in really repairing the rift with the European Union. He thinks that Brexit was the right thing to do. The Europeans are generally rather angry about Brexit and they blame Brexit fairly directly on Boris Johnson who led the campaign to leave the eu. And I'm afraid, I think that now the desire that some people had for a closer relationship with Britain's biggest neighbors and largest trading partner, I think that that's probably going out of the window. The relationship will be quite scratchy and difficult, particularly on trade issues, but also in some other areas for some months and years to come.

Thanks very much for joining us, John.

Thank you.

Vaccines are poking their way into politics all over the world. A topic taken up by our sister show the Jab on Economist Radio this week my colleagues spoke with Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the Biden administration, about how America's federal pandemic response is changing.

Before the federal government was involved, but often they said, leave it to the states, you're on your own. If it works, great. If it's not, that's your problem. That's not the way it is right now. It's all of our problems and we're all in it together, the states and the federal government.

Look for a new episode of the Jab on Economist Radio every Monday, wherever podcasts are broken down and sold off for parts. Voters went to the polls on Sunday for a presidential election in the Republic of Congo. Not the Democratic Republic of Congo, which isn't, but its smaller neighbor to the west. The election's result was never in doubt. The incumbent, Dennis Sassoungeso, will continue his 37 year stint in office despite widespread unpopularity. After the results were announced, Mr. Sassoon Geso expressed his gratitude, Saying, we must respond to the call to the push for the future of the Congo. Opposition parties in the country are weak and on Monday One of the president's main challengers died of COVID 19, leaving the people of Congo without much reason for optimism.

The election in the Republic of Congo was unsurprising. The incumbent, Denis Sassu Nguezo, won with 8.88percent of the vote, even though he's quite unpopular.

Olivia Ackland writes about Africa for the Economist. She was in the capital Brazzaville for.

The vote, but he has ruled for 37 years and everybody predicted that he would win again whether or not he got the most votes.

So why was that? How did the vote go?

Turnout seemed to be low. So I was in various polling stations throughout the day and there were never any queues. At one of the polling stations opened at 7am Nobody turned up until 8, so it didn't seem like the Congolese were in a rush to exercise their so called democratic rights.

So it's not a matter of allegations of ballot stuffing so much as people simply didn't bother to vote.

So allegedly people were paid to vote for the President and lots of civil servants, lots of soldiers and policemen were reminded by their bosses of who they had to vote for. If there was malpractice, if there were sort of government bullies. Inside the polling stations, it was quite hard to detect because most observing missions were blocked. Neither the EU nor the UN were invited in to observe and the Catholic Church were ready to deploy more than a thousand observers and they were blocked at the last minute. The morning of the polls, the Internet was switched off and only just came back on again after the results were declared on Tuesday. Mr. Sassin Gazou says that the election went very well and everything was above board, of course.

And so what about the opposition? Who was the incumbent up against?

One of the main opposition parties boycotted because they thought it wasn't going to be a fair election. And then there were two other main opposition candidates. One of them, Guy Brice Parfait Colelas, sadly died of COVID On Monday morning. The day after the vote, he recorded a video from his hospital bed.

Monsieur Compatriot, you're showing difficulty.

When he was clutching an oxygen mask and he was clearly struggling to breathe. And he told his supporters that he was fighting death, but even so, they should get up and go and vote for change. And then we heard he was being evacuated in a plane to France. And just as the plane touched down in France, he died in the airplane. I was at his party offices the morning that he died. Lots of his supporters were weeping and screaming and crying, and people were claiming that he'd been poisoned, which is certainly not true. The president may have few qualms about locking up his opponents, but he would not go as far as to poison them.

That is to say, people often get locked up for political reasons in Congo.

Trezor and Zilla, the head of the Congolese Observatory for Human Rights, said arbitrary arrest, arbitrary detention is commonplace. And the reason that the authorities often give is that people are threatening state security, threatening public safety, attempting to create unrest. Le motif souvenir. Two opposition candidates from the election in 2016 who contested the results were sentenced to 20 years of hard labor for threatening state security.

So Mr. Sassoungeso looks fairly well cemented.

In power then, on a continent where a lot of presidents and a lot of autocrats have held onto power for far too long. Sasso Nguezho has the rather dubious record of being the third longest serving president in Africa. It's a young population. Most people have never been governed by anyone else. And he's been nicknamed the Emperor by other African leaders, largely on account of his sharp suits and his long time in office. In 2015, he had a referendum to remove the presidential age limit because he is 77 and the presidential age limit was 70. Then he also amended the constitution so that he could stand in elections for 10 more years from now.

So given that and the evident hopelessness of Congolese voters, how was this latest win received? What happened after?

Outside Sasse and Gheze's party offices. There were lots of chanting, sweaty people waving banners. Everyone was wearing T shirts with the president's face on them, hats with the president's face on them, waving flags. And I spoke to a couple of people and I asked them why they were there, and they said, oh, yes, we're here to celebrate the victory of the president. And then I asked a few more questions, and it turned out that most people in the crowd were being paid to attend. So it was a rent a crowd party, and there were plump men from the ruling party handing out money to people who were making the most noise and who were chanting the most enthusiastically.

So amid scenes like this, and in particular, since the main opposition figure has now sadly passed away, where does that leave the opposition movement?

So the other main opposition candidate, Matthias Son, rejects the results. He says it was a fraudulent election and he's going to appeal to the Constitutional Court. Sadly, he won't get very far because the Constitutional Court is stacked in favor of Sassya Ngazo. So unfortunately, I don't see much happening. I think people are just resigned to more and more of the Emperor.

Well, if the country is stuck with the incumbent as a leader for the indefinite future, it's worth asking, is he at least running the country well?

So, in short, no, he's not running the country well. Despite being sub Saharan Africa's third largest oil producer, Congo's public debt is more than 100% of GDP. Watchdog Global Witness claims that the president's son, Dennis Kristel, has stolen millions of dollars from the national oil company, which is run very opaquely. He used some of the money to buy a penthouse in Miami and a villa in France. Of course, the president's son denies these accusations. Meanwhile, almost half of the population live on less than $2 a day. The economy contracted by 8% in 2020, and around a third of the population are unemployed. So, unfortunately, the outlook is pretty bleak. The Emperor marches on. They've got another five years of Sassu Nguezho. He doesn't show any signs of relinquishing power. And I don't see the situation for the average Congolese person improving anytime soon.

Olivia, thanks very much for your time.

Thanks very much, Jason.

Members of the Habsburg noble family ended up as the kings and queens of much of Europe over the course of centuries. They were also notable for a prodigious amount of inbreeding. Cousins marrying cousins, uncles marrying nieces. Genetically speaking, that's risky. In fact, it now seems clear that the famed Habsburg jaw that many rulers had was a genetic hand me down brought about by incestuous relations. The Habsburgs weren't the only European ruling family that kept it in the family. And new research suggests that a jutting jaw wasn't the only danger of inbreeding.

It's quite tricky to figure out exactly how much of an impact a monarch might have on the success of their country. Historians have sort of argued for centuries about whether or not genetics may play a role.

Wade Jo is a data journalist with the Economist.

A recent paper by Nico Boatlander and Sebastian Ottinger of the University of California at Los Angeles looks at this very question. They essentially argue that as monarchs become more inbred, the worse and worse their children will fare as rulers.

How did they go about even measuring that?

One way to gauge how inbred a person might be is to study their family trees. The authors did this for about 300 European monarchs, spanning from around 980 to 1800. They then generated scores estimating how inbred each monarch was along those family trees. As it turns out, those scores are highly correlated with how successful monarchs are, both in subjective terms, as determined by historians, and in objective terms. I think any biologist would warn you against the dangers of inbreeding. Essentially, when you reproduce with someone you are closely related to, you are increasing the likelihood that your kids will suffer from diseases that result from recessive genes. In the case of certain European monarchs, when you do this over the span of, say, 10 generations, these problems become especially prominent.

And so in that regard, are there any particular monarchs that stand out for poor performance and high inbreeding?

So the canonical example historians point to of royal inbreeding is King Charles II of Spain. He was noted to be an exceptionally ugly man who, according to one ambassador, terrified his wife. He was reported as having a jaw that was so large that he could not chew properly. King Charles II was a Habsburg. His family is interesting because they essentially married their way into ruling over a large chunk of Europe, including Spain. And one of the ways they were able to do so was through inbreeding. If you marry your first cousin, there's a good chance that even after your kids die, the throne will stay within your family's hands. Unfortunately, it can also lead to situations like King Charles II.

And the way that Charles II's reign went kind of bears out this theory that inbreeding plays a. Plays a strong role.

Charles, by all contemporary accounts, was not a successful ruler. Shortly after he died, Spain was engulfed in a series of wars, which ultimately resulted in it losing control over parts of what are now Belgium and northern Italy. In general, the authors of the study find that a severely inbred ruler tends to lose around 24 percentage points more land than the least inbred rulers, nodding to the idea that rulers who come from more diverse gene pools tend to be more successful.

So this is all well and good as a sort of historical study, but what relevance do you think this has these days in the 21st century?

So there's a long standing debate as to whether or not leaders actually matter. Is it possible, for example, that leaders only look successful in retrospect because their countries are doing well and not the other way around? What this paper provides evidence of is that it certainly seems like the individual characteristics of a leader, say their intellectual abilities, do in fact affect how well their countries do. I think what the lesson King Charles II teaches us is that clearly the abilities of an individual ruler do ultimately make a difference in their countries.

Thanks very much for joining us. Wade.

Thanks, Jason.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, leave us a rating and a review and you can subscribe to the economist@examiner.com intelligenceoffer the link is in the show Notes. See you back here tomorrow.

Sam.