European Council President Charles Michel rejected charges of "vaccine nationalism" levelled against the EU, saying that while Britain and the United States have outright bans on exports of COVID-19 shots, the EU had not stopped exporting.
"Europe will not use vaccines for propaganda purposes. We promote our values," Reuters cited him as saying.
Michel also 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."
