EU Warns Of Banning Drug Firms From Exporting COVID Vaccines To UK, Other Nations If They Fail To Deliver Promised Jabs

In a major development, the European Union (EU) on Thursday (25 March) said that it will ban the drug firms from exporting COVID-19 vaccines to the United Kingdom (UK) and other countries unless the companies make good on their promised deliveries to the EU, reports Livemint.

The warning from EU's chief Ursula von der Leyen came after she held a video summit of all the 27-nation bloc leaders.

Addressing a news conference, Leyen said, "I think it is clear that first of all the company (AstraZeneca) has to catch up, has to honour the contract it has with the European member states before it can engage again in exporting vaccines."

French President Emmanuel Macron also lent support to Leyen's stance. He said, "I support the idea that we should block all possible exports for as long as the labs don't respect their commitments to Europeans."

However, some other leaders are said to have stressed that an embargo should be a measure of last resort if negotiations for a better way of sharing vaccine production come up short.

It should be noted that British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca operates a plant in the Netherlands which British Prime Minister (PM) Boris Johnson has claimed as a part of the British vaccine supply chain. This gains significance as the Netherlands, along with Belgium, are the centres of vaccine production in the EU.