The European Commission has warned that it could restrict exports of Covid vaccines outside the EU if there is no reciprocal openness by other vaccine-producing countries when making vaccines available for Europeans.
Describing the pandemic as the "crisis of the century", Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: "If this situation does not change, we will have to reflect on how to make exports to vaccine-producing countries dependent on their level of openness.
"We will reflect on whether exports to countries who have higher vaccination rates than us are still proportionate."
Launching plans for an EU-wide certificate indicating if citizens have been vaccinated, have recovered from the virus, or who have a negative Covid test, President von der Leyen again sharply criticised AstraZeneca, accusing the pharmaceutical company of falling badly short in meeting its vaccine delivery targets.
She said that both Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna would meet their first quarter delivery targets with 66 million and 10 million doses respectively.
AstraZeneca was expected to deliver 90 million doses in the first quarter, she said, but this had been reduced to 40 million, and then 30 million.
"AstraZeneca has under produced and under delivered," she said.
Nonetheless, this would mean 100 million doses in total being delivered to member states in the first quarter.
In the second quarter, she said, Pfizer/BioNTech would deliver 200 million doses, while Moderna would deliver 35 million.
AstraZeneca had promised 180 million doses in the second quarter, but would only deliver 70 million, she said.
Johnson and Johnson would deliver 55 million doses in the second quarter.
Ms von der Leyen said the EU would still be on target to vaccinate 70% of the adult population by the end of the summer.
She suggested that the UK is a country where there is not "reciprocity" in terms of vaccine supply.
She told reporters: "Where the UK is concerned, we have observed that in the last six weeks 10 million doses by now have been exported to the UK."
The UK was "country number one" in terms of exports from the EU, she said.
"Indeed the UK is producing AstraZeneca. In our contract with AstraZeneca there are even two sites in the UK that are put in the contract for potential deliveries for the European Union.
"We are still waiting for doses to come from the UK, so this is an invitation to show us that there are also doses from the UK coming to the European Union so that we have reciprocity."
