EU will not be ‘blackmailed’ by UK over vaccines, says French minister
The EU will not be “blackmailed” by the UK over Covid vaccine supplies, France’s foreign minister has said, as a cross-Channel dispute over coronavirus jabs continues to escalate.
Jean-Yves Le Drian claimed the UK is set to run into “problems” because it has prioritised first doses of the jab, as he warned that Europe would not “pay the price” for Britain’s decision.
“You can’t be playing like this — a bit of blackmail — just because you hurried to get people vaccinated with a first shot, and now you’re a bit handicapped because you don’t have the second one,” he told France Info radio.
“The UK is proud to have vaccinated many people with the first dose, but they will have a problem with the second dose,” he added.
The UK has so far offered a first dose to more than 29.3m people, more than 3m of whom have received both doses. In comparison, just 8.6m people in France have received their first dose of a Covid jab, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s Covid vaccine tracker.
Le Drian warned the EU will not “accept any sort of blackmail” if Britain is forced to turn to EU vaccine supplies to meet its second-dose commitments.
A government spokesman insisted the UK is “on track to meet our vaccination targets and everyone will get their second dose within 12 weeks of their first.”
The French minister’s comments sparked furious backlash from Tory MPs, who accused EU leaders of hypocrisy.
Bob Seely, Conservative MP and member of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said: “At a time when everyone has a duty to be working together, for both the good of the EU and the UK, the wretched vaccine nationalism of some EU politicians is appalling.”
Philip Davies, Tory MP for Shipley in West Yorkshire, said: “I think the French and the EU should take note of the maxim: when you’re in hole, stop digging.”
The British government and the EU earlier this week vowed to co-operate in a bid to iron out a long-running dispute over vaccine shortages within the bloc.
In a joint statement on Wednesday, the two sides said: “We are all facing the same pandemic and the third wave makes co-operation between the EU and UK even more important.
“We have been discussing what more we can do to ensure a reciprocally beneficial relationship between the UK and EU on Covid-19.”
There appeared to be progress this afternoon, with the EU medicines regulator announcing it had approved the use of a factory in the Netherlands for the production of Covid vaccines for Europe, despite its current use to provide jabs for the UK.
Downing Street earlier this week refused to rule out sharing British supplies of the Astrazeneca vaccine made in the Netherlands.
The PM indicated he was willing to compromise over the distribution of Dutch-made supplies in order to prevent the EU implementing a blanket ban on vaccine exports.
French President Emmanuel Macron is currently leading a group of countries including Spain, Italy and Austria who are pushing for tougher curbs on vaccine exports out of the EU.
Though he failed to acknowledge the UK’s success in its vaccine rollout, Macron yesterday admitted that the EU had failed to “shoot for the stars” with its vaccine strategy.
Speaking to Greek TV channel ERT, he said: “Everybody, all the experts said: never in the history of mankind was a vaccine developed in less than a year.
“We didn’t shoot for the stars. That should be a lesson for all of us… As far as we’re concerned, we didn’t go fast enough, strong enough on this.”