BRUSSELS (REUTERS) - European Union governments have supported a plan to extend a mechanism to monitor and potentially limit the export of Covid-19 vaccines from the bloc, a European Commission spokesman said on Tuesday (June 22).

The decision paves the way for the Commission to formally extend in the coming days the extraordinary mechanism until the end of September, an EU official said.

The mechanism would otherwise expire at the end of June.

The EU Commission established the mechanism at the end of January in a bid to curb exports of vaccines by pharmaceutical companies deemed not to be respecting their supply commitments with the EU.

The mechanism has allowed hundreds of millions of shots made in the EU to be exported towards dozens of countries around the world.

It has been used to block only one shipment of 250,000 AstraZeneca doses to Australia in March, after the Anglo-Swedish firm cut supplies to the EU.