The European Commission has extended until the end of June a regulation introducing checks on the export of COVID-19 vaccines from the EU.

The news came as the European Medicines Agency gave conditional approval for a vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen to be used in the EU. 

The exports measure was brought in in January, when the EU became embroiled in a row with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca over the supply of vaccines. The regulation had been due to run until 12 March.

The EU said the move was aimed at preventing the export of vaccines by companies which were not honouring their supply contracts with the bloc.

At the time, a hastily reversed decision to invoke Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol agreed in Brexit negotiations to support the measure provoked anger in Ireland and the UK.

'Vaccine nationalism' accusations

The European Commission, which had faced accusations of ‘vaccine nationalism’, has defended the rules, with Commissioner for Trade Valdis Dombrovskis saying that shipments to more than 30 countries had been authorised since the measure was introduced.

“The first weeks of the application of this instrument have shown that the trade disruption feared by many did not take place,” he said.

The commission said 249 export requests to 31 different countries had been granted for just over 34 million doses of vaccine, “as they did not threaten the contractual engagements between the EU and the vaccine producers”.

This figure included more than nine million doses bound for the UK. Only one export request was not granted.