EU chief did NOT sign letter backing global alliance to fight pandemics

URSULA von der Leyen has failed to back calls for a new global treaty on fighting pandemics amid fears she will try to block vaccine exports to Britain. More than 20 world leaders including Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel signed the joint letter urging greater international cooperation. They said ‘nations should work together’ to be ‘better prepared’ for the next global health crisis. But Mrs von der Leyen (pictured), who is European Commission president, did not sign the letter. Officials refused to confirm or deny that she had been given several chances to do so. Sources in Brussels said she was focused on fixing the bloc’s troubled vaccine rollout scheme. ‘This is the priority, rather than wasting time and energy on something which is nothing more than hot air,’ said one official. Dana

Spinant, the European Commission deputy chief spokesman, said Mrs von der Leyen wants ‘to improve preparedness’ for future pandemics.

In the letter, published in newspapers across the world, lawmakers urged a new era of solidarity in the face of ‘the biggest challenge to the global community since the 1940s’. They described the pandemic as a ‘painful reminder that nobody is safe until everyone is’.

The EU executive has been locked in a bitter row with AstraZeneca after it delivered fewer doses this year than was expected.

EU officials are also furious that the Cambridge-based firm will only commit to delivering 70million, instead of the original 1 0million target for the second quarter of this year.

But the blueprint to make up the shortfall by blockading vaccine doses made in the EU but bought by Britain has split the commision.