Belgium PM trolls Boris Johnson with 'Made in Europe' tweet
Prime minister Boris Johnson waves as he leaves Guy's Hospital in London, after watching a patient receive a Covid-19 vaccination jab on the first day of the largest immunisation programme in the UK's history - Credit: PA
The Belgian prime minister had reminded Boris Johnson that the UK's Covid-19 vaccine was actually "Made in Europe".
Alexander De Croo trolled Johnson after he tweeted his thanks "to our NHS, to all of the scientists who worked so hard to develop this vaccine, to all the volunteers" as the UK began its roll-out of the the Pfizer/BioNTech jab.
A large part of the vaccine was produced in Belgium.
De Croo's dig comes days after Germany's health minister reminded Matt Hancock that the vaccine was an "EU product".
Jens Spahn's remark came after the health secretary made claims that UK officials fast-tracked vaccine thanks to Brexit.
Spahn said the claims had been 'misplaced' as he reminded Westminster politicians that the treatment had been partly developed by a German biotech start-up, BioNTech.
MORE: Matt Hancock ignores experts to repeat claim British fast-tracked Covid vaccine due to Brexit
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Shooting down assertions the UK had new powers since leaving the EU to force through an approval, he said: "We have member states, including Germany, who could have issued such an emergency authorisation if we’d wanted to but we decided against this and what we opted for was a common European approach to move forward together.”
Hancock was also rebuked by the head of Britain's medicines regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, who said the process has been undertaken under the terms of European law, which remains in force until the end of Brexit transition period on December 31.
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