European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen admitted some other countries had been quicker with their vaccine roll-out, but that the bloc had agreed not to "compromise" on safety.

She said it was a "good decision" to be careful, in an interview with French daily newspaper Le Monde, after the EU had been criticized for lagging the UK in handing out vaccines.

"Some countries started to vaccinate a little before Europe, it is true," she said, pointing to the way emergency procedures were used for authorization.

But she added: "The Commission and the member states agreed not to compromise on the safety and effectiveness requirements linked to the authorization of a vaccine."

Von der Leyen was speaking to several European newspapers, during an interview in which she also sought to defuse anger over a decision, swiftly reversed, to invoke Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol.

Von der Leyen, who has tweeted but not appeared in public since the bloc mandated that vaccine exports require clearance, was asked by the Irish Times if she would apologize.

The Commission chief replied that she regretted that Article 16 was in a "provisional version" of the decision, but said the EU executive had been "quick on its feet" to find another solution.

In similar comments to France's Le Monde she said: "When you take urgent decisions – in this year of crisis, the Commission has taken almost 900 – there is always a risk of missing something."

Von der Leyen has been called to face questioning on the saga by the European Parliament next week, and the Commission is due to explain itself before EU ambassadors on Wednesday.

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The vaccine crisis, which came to a head with EU export controls unveiled on Friday, came after news that AstraZeneca would cut its supply of doses to the bloc until March by 60 percent due to production problems.

Even with the addition of an extra 9 million doses that Von der Leyen announced on Sunday, the shortfall is at least 50 percent.

EU countries have so far given first doses to about 3 percent of their populations, compared with 9 percent for the U.S. and 14 percent for the UK, according to Our World in Data.

Von der Leyen said the supply problems should ease in the second quarter of 2021, with more production capacity for Pfizer-BioNTech and other potential approvals of vaccines, including from Johnson & Johnson.

The European Medicines Agency has moved more slowly than authorities elsewhere, which adopted emergency approval procedures. EU countries had agreed, she said, on a different approach, which meant it took three to four weeks longer.

The Commission has ordered 2.3 billion doses from six producers, far more than the bloc requires. Production, though, has been an enormous challenge, with clear teething problems.

"I see it as a marathon in which we have only covered the first kilometers. We need fitness and nerves of steel, but I'm confident we'll make it to the finish line," she told Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant.