European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday acknowledged that the European Union was not where it wanted to be in the fight against the novel coronavirus and the bloc' underestimated the difficulty of mass-producing vaccines.

"We were late with the approval. We were too optimistic on mass production. And perhaps we were also too certain that the orders would actually be delivered on time," Leyen told the European Parliament in a debate on the bloc's vaccine strategy.

(With input from Reuters)