The European Union threatened today, Wednesday, to ban the export of vaccines to prevent Covid-19 to Britain to keep the scarce doses for its citizens at a time when countries are facing a third wave of the outbreak of the pandemic, which in turn threatens plans to resume travel movement this summer, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the epidemiological situation It is getting worse as the number of deaths from the disease in the European Union exceeds 550,000, and only a tenth of its population has been immunized.
"We are in the crisis of the century ... we are witnessing the peak of the third wave in the member states, and we know that we need to accelerate the pace of vaccination rates," she told reporters.
She indicated that the vaccine doses are flowing smoothly with the United States, but she expressed her disappointment regarding the late arrival of shipments from AstraZeneca in Britain. She said that the factories of the European Union countries sent ten million doses to Britain, a former member of the Union.
And she added, "We are still waiting for doses to arrive from Britain," in the latest sign of the strained relations between Britain and the bloc after its exit from it.
"If this situation does not change, we will have to consider making the export of the vaccine to countries producing it dependent on their level of trust with us," Von der Leyen said. "We will examine whether it is still appropriate to export to countries with higher immunization rates than we do."
British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab responded, accusing the commission of recklessness and demanding clarifications after his government received assurances that the European Union does not intend to place restrictions on the exports that have been contracted. "We expect that these assurances and legally contracted supplies will be respected," he told Reuters.
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