Source::AP
BRUSSELS
The European Union moved Wednesday toward stricter export controls for coronavirus vaccines, seeking to make sure its 27 nations have more COVID-19 shots to boost the bloc’s flagging vaccine campaign amid a surge in new infections.
The EU’s executive Commission said on the eve of a summit of the EU’s leaders that it has a plan to guarantee that more vaccines produced in the bloc are available for its 450 million citizens even if that comes at the cost of helping nations outside the bloc, most notably Britain. EU officials said trade with the United States should not be affected and assured nations that sought to have an open, transparent relationship with the bloc that they had little to fear.
The EU move is expected to be a blow to Britain, whose speedy vaccination rollout has been eyed with envy by many EU nations, especially since it came as the U.K. formally completed its Brexit divorce from the bloc. The latest figures show that 45% of Britons have had at least one vaccine shot, compared to less than 14% for the bloc.
The EU has been feuding with AstraZeneca for months over exactly how many vaccine doses would be delivered by certain dates. Several vaccine producers, including Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca, were hit by technical production delays over the winter, just as worldwide demands for coronavirus vaccines soared. AstraZeneca has been producing less than half the doses the EU was counting on. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has sought to ease the tensions over vaccines, speaking by phone in the past few days to European leaders including von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron.
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