‘I don’t want restrictions on EU vaccine exports’

AstraZeneca needs to meet its contract with the European Union and supply the number of vaccines it agreed to deliver, Ireland’s Minister for European Affairs has said.

Speaking on Tuesday Thomas Byrne told BBC Hardtalk: “What I want and what I think every government wants is for AstraZeneca to fulfil the contract and get these injections into people's arms starting in the middle of February.”

Mr Byrne said he did not want to see restrictions on EU manufactured vaccines leaving the bloc if there were continuing supply problems.

The head of AstraZeneca has defended its rollout of coronavirus vaccine in the EU telling the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, external that his team was working “24/7 to fix the very many issues of production of the vaccine". Pascal Soriot also said the EU’s late signing of contracts had limited the time to fix hiccups with supply.

Watch the full interview on Wednesday 27 January 2021 on BBC World News or watch again on BBC iPlayer (UK only)