BRUSSELS – A battle over vaccines between the UK and the European Union intensified on Wednesday, highlighting the rapidly deteriorating relations already set back by disputes over the agreement that confirmed the UK’s separation from the bloc.
The latest blow to unanimous relations between major US allies came when the EU announced it was considering giving more member states power to block exports of Covid-19 vaccines, of which the UK was the largest recipient outside the EU .
The UK’s vaccination campaign has yielded almost half of the country’s adults at least one shot, in contrast to the hitherto faltering deployment of the EU.
Britain left the bloc on 31 January last year and will start a new economic relationship this year, based on a last-minute trade agreement that spelled out a trade-long trade relationship.
At the time, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the agreement was “a resolution of the old, tired, troubling question of Britain’s political relations with Europe which has dissatisfied our history from war to war.” He said the UK would be ‘the best friend and ally of the EU’.