BRUSSELS, March 17 (Reuters) - Britain needs to show a
willingness to ship vaccines to the European Union, which is
considering making reciprocity a condition of its vaccine
exports in future, the head of the European Commission said on
Wednesday.
Ursula von der Leyen said it was hard to explain to EU
citizens why vaccines were going to other countries, while
hardly anything was heading the other way.
"With the U.S. the reciprocity is given... There is a
seamless flow back and forth of pre-products and raw materials
and drug substance," she told a news conference.
However, she said that, while 10 million doses had gone form
EU plants to Britain, the EU was still waiting for AstraZeneca
vaccine doses from UK plants.
"We are still waiting for doses to come from the UK, so this
is an invitation to show us that there are also doses from the
UK coming to the European Union so that we have reciprocity,"
she said.
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop, Sabine Siebold and Jan
Strupczewski)