MOSCOW, November 16. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced that at present there is not much progress on the mutual recognition of vaccines between Moscow and Europe.

"Significant progress has not yet been achieved, we are awaiting the completion of the relevant procedures by the WHO and the EMA," he said at Tuesday's press conference.

Lavrov noted that Europe has not responded to the Russian proposal to suspend patent protection of vaccines, previously put forward by Russian President Vladimir Putin. "The proposal put forward by Russia at the G20 summit in May this year where [Russian President Vladimir] Putin suggested suspending patent protection of vaccines in the interests of combating the pandemic as well as expanding access to the vaccine for developing countries , has received no response," he said.

The minister added that the dialogue on mutual recognition of vaccines has been underway. "The mutual recognition of vaccine certificates is also our initiative, which is, in my view, evident in this situation, but our western colleagues didn’t respond to it for some reason. However, the dialogue has been underway," he said expressing hope for a quick resolution of this issue.