PARIS: A row over Covid-19 vaccine access escalated on Friday, with France accusing Britain of “blackmail” in its dealings with the EU, and Russia and China of misusing vaccines to boost their foreign policy clout.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s salvo came a day after the European Union threatened to ban pharma firms from exporting coronavirus vaccines to the UK and other well-supplied countries until they make good on their promised deliveries to the bloc.
British-based AstraZeneca would likely be the first target of any such restrictions. The UK, Le Drian said, was under pressure because it lacked doses for second vaccine shots.
“The United Kingdom has taken great pride in vaccinating well with the first dose except they have a problem with the second dose,” he told France Info radio. “You are vaccinated when you have had both doses. Today there are as many people vaccinated with both in France as the United Kingdom,” he added.
According to data compiled, Britain has administered two vaccine doses to 4.1 per cent of its population, against 3.9 per cent overall in France.
“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,” Le Drian added.
Le Drian did not say what precisely constituted the alleged British blackmail, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson had warned earlier in the week that trade “blockades” would chill investment.
“I would just gently point out to anybody considering a blockade, or interruption of supply chains, that companies may look at such actions and draw conclusions about whether or not it is sensible to make future investments in countries where arbitrary blockades are imposed,” he told lawmakers.
The latest EU-UK row centres on an AstraZeneca plant in the Netherlands, which Johnson’s government claims as part of the British vaccine supply chain.
— AFP
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