EU Lashes out at China, Russia for Using Covid-19 Vaccines for Propaganda Purposes

European Council President Charles Michel on Tuesday took aim at the "highly publicised" supply of COVID-19 vaccines from China and Russia to other countries, and said Europe would not use vaccines for propaganda purposes.

"We should not let ourselves be misled by China and Russia, both regimes with less desirable values than ours, as they organise highly limited but widely publicised operations to supply vaccines to others," Michel, who chairs summits of European Union leaders, said in a statement.

He noted that, according to available figures, China and Russia have administered half as many coronavirus vaccine doses per 100 inhabitants as the 27-nation EU.

"Europe will not use vaccines for propaganda purposes. We promote our values," he said.

In a lengthy statement Michel, who represents the leaders of the 27 European Union member states, laid out a defense of the bloc's strategy.

He said that without Europe, it would not have been possible to develop and produce several vaccines in less than a year, and EU solidarity had helped poor countries get first doses.

He 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."

He said that the EU will become the world's leading vaccine producer in the coming months and was the best equipped to adapt vaccine production quickly to virus mutations.