European Union seeks to boost credibility despite slow COVID vaccine rollout

The European Union has defended its flagging coronavirus vaccine program, which has come under criticism from the World Health Organization, EU states and recently departed member Britain.

Ten days of bad news about stalled deliveries from producers and a rusty rollout by member states were capped last weekend when the EU made a hasty U-turn on plans to set up controls on the island of Ireland — between the United Kingdom’s Northern Ireland and the EU’s Republic of Ireland — to make sure vaccines wouldn’t be illegally transported to Britain.

The plan was evntually aborted.

However, it left the European Commission — the EU’s executive arm — with diplomatic egg on its face as it would have breached a key tenet of the…