Thread by @DaveKeating

The EU Commission says that it helped finance the development of the #AstraZeneca #COVID19, and in return it was supposed to get guaranteed access to 300m doses.

Now, the Commission suggests those doses appear to have been given to someone else.

The EU may prevent Pharma companies from exporting vaccines made in facilities in EU countries that have been promised to the EU.

Questions are also being asked why AZ didn't apply for EU authorisation until 12 January. EU approval expected Friday.

Commission President @vonderleyen told #Davos2021 this morning the pharma companies "must honour their obligations".

But what are those obligations? We don't know exactly because neither EU or UK are making these contracts public.

https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1354047916067991552?s=20

Here's the fundamental problem: at this point it appears AstraZeneca doesn't have enough vaccine doses to meet the commitments it made to both EU and UK.

So AZ is going to have to anger one or the other here. Or maybe both. Who's going to get the doses over the coming weeks?

BTW, avoiding something like this was the whole point of EU joint vaccine procurement.

Things are about to get very ugly between the EU and UK on vaccine access. Imagine if each EU country had purchased separately and this conflict was happening between all countries in Europe.