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European Union leaders tentatively endorsed strengthened vaccine export controls on Thursday, but said the bloc should act carefully to avoid threatening international supply chains for injections.
At the end of a virtual summit that focused on the bloc’s coronavirus problems, the leaders said they would not oppose a new system proposed by the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, which gives member states greater powers to block vaccine exports. However, they warned against any blanket measure.
“On the one hand we want to preserve global supply chains and fight protectionism, but on the other we want to take care of our own population, because that is the only way out of the crisis,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel after the meeting. .
The commission provided new data on Thursday showing that 77 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine had been exported from the bloc to more than 30 countries since Dec. 1. That is just shy of the 88 million doses that the EU has distributed to its own member states.
The troubled launch of the EU vaccine has left millions of Europeans waiting for drug makers to deliver their assigned doses, at a time of rising death and infection rates from the coronavirus pandemic, adding to pressure. on the leaders of the bloc.
