MOSCOW, March 22. /TASS/. Attempts to prevent the use of the Russian Sputnik V anti-coronavirus vaccine in the European Union continue, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Monday.
"The situation around the Sputnik V vaccine is quite demonstrative. We see that attempts to prevent Sputnik V use in the European Union continue," he said at a roundtable meeting on relations with Europe at the international committee of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house.
According to the Russian senior diplomat, EU institutions are demonstratively ignoring the Russia vaccine. Moreover, it is a target for a disinformation and discrimination campaign. "We hear political statement that cannot be interpreted other than politicized. The goal of such statement is not to consolidate efforts to cope with this evil, this challenge (the pandemic - TASS)," he added.
European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton said on March 21 that the European Union doesn’t need the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. On March 17, he said the European Commission had no doubts concerning the Russian vaccine’s quality but it knew that "there seem to be some difficulties today to manufacture this vaccine."
Under an agreement between the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the Swiss-Italian company Adienne Pharma & Biotech (Lugano), Sputnik V will be manufactured at the company’s production facility in northern Italy. However its use in the European Union is impossible until it is certified by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Nevertheless, production is possible without EMA’s approval for exports to those countries that have certified the vaccine. There are more than 40 such countries, including Hungary and Slovakia, which certified the vaccine unilaterally.