LONDON (CU)_United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab summoned the European Union’s UK representative over claims made by the president of the European Council that London has banned exports of vaccines, which the British government says is entirely false.
Accordingly, Raab wrote to EU’s council president Charles Michel, voicing his concerns regarding the statement issued on Tuesday, and accused the latter of publishing false information.
Brussels’ portrayal of UK’s vaccine export policy, not only by Michel, but also by several senior EU politicians, has sparked fury in London. Government sources say that while UK has repeatedly privately corrected the record on these claims made within the EU and the Commission, however, the Foreign Secretary now needs to “draw a line” on the matter.
Therefore, a representative for the EU has been summoned to a meeting at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London.
Michel made the relevant claim on Tuesday, in defence of EU’s vaccine policy, saying the bloc should not be accused of hoarding vaccines via export controls, when London maintains stronger prohibitions on exports.
“I am also shocked when I hear the accusations of ‘vaccine nationalism’ against the EU. Here again, the facts do not lie,” he wrote in his newsletter.
He said that the United Kingdom and the United States have imposed “an outright ban on the export of vaccines or vaccine components” produced on their territory, adding that EU has merely put in place a system of controlling export of doses produced in the bloc.
However, a spokesperson for the British government said the claim was untrue.
In his letter the Foreign secretary noted that the world is “facing the pandemic together” and that he wanted to “set the record straight”.
“The UK government has not blocked the export of a single COVID-19 vaccine or vaccine components,” the letter read. “Any references to a UK export ban or any restrictions on vaccines are completely false.”
