French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday he doesn’t think the Russian Sрutnik V coronavirus vaccines can now be used in the European Union to accelerate vaccination because it has not yet been certified by the European sanitary regulator.

Axar.az reports that this was reported by Russian media.

"Because of the fact that we accelerated production in Europe, we are definitely catching up and we will be in the situation to meet our targets with what we have now," he said in an interview with CBS.

According to the French leader, a number of EU member states have decided to begin discussions about Sрutnik. "But we have a-very few simple principles. First, if there is no recognition of a vaccine by our European sanitary authorities, there is no way to use this vaccine on our soil. And at this stage, the Russian vaccine is not recognized by our authorities," he said.

"So I don't think that the Russian vaccine today is a solution to an acceleration because it will take time to have the authorization of the European agency and it will take time to produce on our continent such a vaccine," he added.