Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on 7 April that his country was still waiting for the delivery of 3.1 million doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine produced in the EU.
He made it clear in an address to the press that he was not challenging the EU directly, but that he was “giving a simple fact”.
The European Commission, for its part, has still not given any new information on a potential export blockage. It also did not indicate whether AstraZeneca had submitted an application for authorisation to export to Australia.
It said it had no figures on the export licensing mechanism other than those covering the period from 30 January to 29 March 2021. “483 export applications were approved, and only one was rejected. You will receive an update on these figures in the near future”, said trade spokesman Balazs Ujvari.
European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer did not comment on the ongoing contacts between Australia and the EU on vaccine supply. He recalled that the EU was also facing delivery problems. “We are not the only region in the world producing AstraZeneca vaccines. This is not just a bilateral issue between one country and the EU”, he explained. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)