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BRUSSELS, March 9 (Reuters) - European Council President
Charles Michel on Tuesday rejected charges of "vaccine
nationalism" levelled against the EU, and said that while
Britain and the United States have outright bans on exports of
COVID-19 shots, the EU had not stopped exporting.
The EU has found itself under fire at home for a vaccine
rollout far slower than those of former member Britain or the
United States, and abroad for so far doing less than China,
Russia or India to supply vaccines to poor countries.
Last week it annoyed vaccine buyers abroad by backing an
Italian decision to halt a shipment to Australia.
In a lengthy statement Michel, who represents the leaders of
the 27 European Union member states, laid out a defence of the
bloc's strategy. He said that without Europe, it would not have
been possible to develop and produce several vaccines in less
than a year, and EU solidarity had helped poor countries get
first doses.
He took aim at the "highly publicised" supply of vaccines by
China and Russia to other countries.
"We should not let ourselves be misled by China and Russia,
both regimes with less desirable values than ours, as they
organise highly limited but widely publicised operations to
supply vaccines to others," he said. He also noted that China
and Russia had both vaccinated fewer people at home than the EU.
"Europe will not use vaccines for propaganda purposes. We
promote our values."
He defended a system to control the export of doses produced
in EU countries, invoked by Italy last week to block a shipment
of AstraZeneca shots to Australia.
"Our objective: to prevent companies from which we have
ordered and pre-financed doses from exporting them to other
advanced countries when they have not delivered to us what was
promised," Michel said. "The EU has never stopped exporting."
He said that the EU will become the world's leading vaccine
producer in the coming months and was the best equipped to adapt
vaccine production quickly to virus mutations.
(Writing by John Chalmers
Editing by Peter Graff)
