Last checked at 
(Updates with letter to AstraZeneca, demand by 6 EU countries)
By Francesco Guarascio and Gabriela Baczynska
BRUSSELS, March 18 (Reuters) - France, Germany and Italy
backed an EU threat to tighten COVID-19 vaccine exports as rifts
over scarcity of the shots deepened and the 27-nation bloc
struggled to obtain more deliveries.
The European Commission threatened on Wednesday to ban
exports to countries like Britain that have higher vaccination
rates but do not export shots to the EU. The aim is to safeguard
supplies for the bloc's own citizens as they face a third wave
of the pandemic.
Germany, Italy, France and Denmark were among those
supporting tougher export controls, according to three diplomats
and officials who attended an EU ambassadors' meeting shortly
after the Commission's threat.
But, in a sign of discord, the Netherlands, Belgium,
Luxembourg and Ireland were more cautious, two of the officials
said, adding that a discussion on the matter will be held at an
EU summit next week.
Vaccine producer AstraZeneca has attracted a good
deal of criticism in the EU, which says it is not meeting its
supply obligations.
"It's all stemming from a growing frustration with
AstraZeneca and being under increased pressure to do something
about it. We don't have enough vaccines, we export like crazy
without getting anything," said one of the diplomats who
participated in the discussions.
The Commission said on Thursday it was sending a letter to
AstraZeneca in what could be the first step in a legal fight
against the Anglo-Swedish firm.
The company said last week it aimed to deliver to the EU 100
million doses of its vaccine by the end of June, instead of 300
million envisaged under its EU contract, citing production
problems and export restrictions.
Separately, six EU countries including Latvia, Bulgaria and
the Czech Republic demanded that the bloc reallocate the
vaccines it is buying collectively to make up for their
shortfalls in shots from AstraZeneca.
They hope to agree a "correction mechanism" to the usual
distribution scheme based on the size of every country's
population, in order to get a larger share of 10 million extra
doses promised by Pfizer for the second quarter.
Without extra deliveries, they say their reliance on
AstraZeneca means they would fall further behind the rest of the
EU on vaccination as the bloc struggles to meet its target of
inoculating 70% adults this summer.
But Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg and others pushed
back, diplomatic sources said, saying eastern European states
have themselves to blame for banking on the cheaper AstraZeneca
vaccine in the first place, and that reducing deliveries at home
to give them more doses would be a hard political sell.
(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska, Editing by Elaine Hardcastle
and Giles Elgood)
