The European Commission is getting ready to launch legal proceedings against vaccine producer AstraZeneca, according to six EU diplomats.
The Commission raised the matter at a meeting of EU ambassadors Wednesday, during which the majority of EU countries said they would support suing the company on the grounds that it massively under-delivered pledged coronavirus vaccine doses to the bloc
The move would mark a further step in an EU plan to sever
ties with the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker after the company repeatedly cut supplies
to the bloc, contributing to major delays in Europe's vaccine rollout.
The news about the legal case was first reported on Thursday
by Politico. An EU official involved in talks with drugmakers confirmed the EU
was preparing to sue the company.
"EU states have to decide if they (will) participate.
It is about fulfillment of deliveries by the end of the second quarter,"
the official said.
The matter was discussed on Wednesday at a meeting with EU
diplomats, the official and a diplomat said. Politico, citing five unnamed
European diplomats, reported that a majority of EU countries at the meeting
said they would support suing the company.
There was no immediate response from AstraZeneca on Thursday
to a request for comment. A spokesman for the European Commission had no
immediate comment.
Brussels in March sent a legal letter to the company in the
first step of a potential legal procedure.
When the deadline for a reply expired this month, a
spokesman for the Commission said the matter was discussed in a meeting with
AstraZeneca but the EU was still seeking further clarification from the company
on "a number of outstanding points".
The spokesman did not elaborate, but details of the letter
published by Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera show the EU was seeking
clarification on what it deemed a delayed application to the EU regulator for
approval of the vaccine.
Brussels also questioned how AstraZeneca spent over 224
million euros ($270 million) granted by the EU in September to buy vaccine
ingredients and for which the company had not provided sufficient documents
confirming the purchases.
Under the contract, the company had committed to making its
"best reasonable efforts" to deliver to the EU 180 million vaccine
doses in the second quarter, for a total of 300 million in the period from
December to June.
But the company said in a statement on March 12 it would aim
to deliver only one third of that. The EU letter was sent a week after that
statement.
Under the contract, the parties agreed that Belgian courts
would be responsible to settle unresolved disputes.
The EU has decided not to take up an option to buy 100
million extra doses of AstraZeneca under the contract, an EU official said,
after supply delays and safety concerns about very rare cases of blood clots
linked to the vaccine.
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