Thread by @Telegraph

🚨 EU officials say "open roads should run in both directions." That could mean UK jabs are restricted

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/…

💉 EU politicians and diplomats are under extreme pressure to explain to voters why the bloc has managed to vaccinate barely 12% of its eligible population, while it continues to export millions of doses of different vaccines abroad

⏰ European leaders will meet tomorrow to take steps to prevent vaccines being exported to countries that have their own manufacturing capability and a strong vaccine drive.

This could restrict Britain's supply of jabs, which could put the UK’s vaccine rollout back by two months

🖊️ Recent anger in Brussels has been directed towards AstraZeneca, which has signed contracts with the UK that give Britain priority over the first 100 million vaccines the company produces, in exchange for R&D funding from the UK Government in the early stages of the pandemic

⚖️ The company says it has been hit with supply issues, and while it is legally bound to protect the doses destined for Britain, its EU contract only demands its “best reasonable efforts”

💉 AstraZeneca jabs produced abroad have been sent to the UK, while doses manufactured in Britain have stayed here. As a result, the company has delivered just 30% of the doses promised in its EU contract for the first quarter of 2021

⭐ Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, had initially planned to keep vaccines in the EU by using an obscure legal mechanism buried in the Lisbon Treaty, which allows officials to take control of factories and re-route the jabs to European arms

📌 In a press conference on Wednesday, officials introduced the concepts of "reciprocity and proportionality."

That loosely translates to: Does the country of destination need jabs more than the EU? And does the EU get anything back?