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| AstraZeneca vaccine © AFP=News1 |
Reuters reported on the 30th (local time) that the European Union (EU) has stepped back from its position to impose export restrictions on vaccines for novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19) produced in 27 member countries.
Earlier, the EU pulled out a press card, saying, “We will block the export of vaccines produced in Europe to the UK,” as the supply of AstraZeneca vaccines, a multinational pharmaceutical company, combined with the lack of vaccines in member countries.
AstraZeneca has vaccine production facilities in Belgium and other countries in addition to the UK, which is a kind of’threat’ that it will not export the product out of the EU.
However, when the UK complained of its export restrictions, the EU was forced to overturn some of the announcement within hours, Reuters said.
British Foreign Minister Dominic Rab said on his Twitter after a conversation with Valdis Dombrovskys, Vice Chairman of the EU Commission, “I reaffirmed that the EU is not willing to stop suppliers from implementing vaccine distribution agreements for the UK.” Is watching. It is only through international cooperation that we can overcome this pandemic.”
The EU’s withdrawal of export restrictions appears to be conscious of the criticism that this is a direct limit to the principle of free trade. The World Health Organization (WHO) also expressed a critical position, saying it was “vaccine nationalism.”
An anonymous EU official said in an interview with Reuters that the EU’s’threat’ was “a very obvious mistake.”