BRUSSELS (AP) – The European Union is pressuring pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to deliver more doses of coronavirus vaccine to the bloc and fulfill its initial promises once the jab gets EU approval, especially because the bloc has invested in improving production capacity.
The European Commission, which is already facing criticism for a slow deployment of vaccines in the 27 member countries, also wants a transparency register to record and approve all vaccine exports outside EU nations to third countries.
“We, as the EU, need to be able to know if and what vaccines are being exported from the EU,” said German Health Minister Jens Spahn. “This is the only way we can understand whether our EU contracts with producers are being served fairly. It makes sense to get approval for vaccine exports at EU level. ”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen held urgent talks on Monday with the company’s head, Pascal Soriot, and EU countries are also meeting with AstraZeneca to encourage the British-Swedish company to increase production. vaccines and meet their contractual objectives.
The EU, with the economic and political weight of the world’s largest trading bloc, lags far behind countries like Israel and Britain in launching vaccines for its most vulnerable population and health workers. Blog leaders have faced strong criticism for moving so slowly.
The European Medicines Agency plans to review the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine on Friday and its approval is expected. The AstraZeneca vaccine is already in use in Britain and has been approved for emergency use by half a dozen countries, including India, Pakistan, Argentina and Mexico.
AstraZeneca’s announcement that it will deliver fewer vaccines to the EU at first has only increased pressure on the 27-nation bloc, especially since Pfizer-BioNTech, the first vaccine to get EU approval, failed to last week to keep its promised deliveries to the EU. Pfizer has temporarily reduced vaccine deliveries to the EU and Canada as it refurbishes its plant in Belgium to increase global production. Italy has threatened to sue Pfizer for the delays.
Political pressure on Monday pushed the European Commission, which is the EU executive, with von der Leyen’s phone call to AstraZeneca’s head.
“He made it clear that he expects AstraZeneca to comply with the contractual arrangements set out in the advance purchase agreement,” said his spokesman Eric Mamer.
“He reminded Mr Soriot that the EU has invested significant amounts in the company ahead precisely to ensure that production increases even before the conditional market authorization is delivered by the European Medicines Agency.”
Of course, production problems can appear with the complex vaccine, but we hope that the company finds solutions and exploits all possible flexibilities to offer them quickly ”.
The delays will make it difficult to achieve the first targets of the EU’s goal of vaccinating 70% of its adult population by the end of the summer.
European Council President Charles Michel said the EU had already “punched the table” with Pfizer last week to ensure the delays ended later this week.
The EU has signed six vaccine contracts for more than 2 billion doses, but so far only Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been approved.
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Geir Moulson contributed to this report from Berlin.
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