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.
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.

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More from @DaveKeating

28 Jan
Update from MEP @peterliese, health spokesman for the largest party in the EU Parliament (thread):

He maintains #AstraZeneca is treating people in EU as "2nd class citizens" and that doses have gone from the EU to the UK.

"They gave 3 different explanations in less than a week" Image
Carrot: He's says objections are with AZ behaviour, not vaccine's efficacy

"There's been a lot of talk about AZ being a bad vaccine - very strange fake news in German media. It's definitely not true"

"If someone offered me AZ, and it’s my turn, I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute"
“The AstraZeneca vaccine has not as good data as the vaccines from BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna but still it is a good vaccine. In October, we would have been happy to have a vaccine that has an efficiency well above 50%."
Read 19 tweets
27 Jan
Barnstorming press conference from EU Health Commissioner @SKyriakidesEU, responding to #AstraZeneca suggestion UK gets vaccine priority because it signed deal earlier.

"In our contract it is not specified any country, or the UK, has priority because it signed earlier." Image
"Let me be crystal clear: the 27 EU member states are united AstraZeneca needs to deliver on its commitments in our agreement. We are in a pandemic."

"The view that the company is not obliged to deliver because we signed a best effort agreement is neither correct or acceptable."
"We reject the logic of first-come-first-served. That may work at the nieghbourhood butchers, but not in contracts," says the EU's health chief.

"There is no priority clause in the advance purchase agreement, and no hierarchy of the 4 production plants - 2 in EU and 2 in UK."
Read 5 tweets
26 Jan
Update from the European Commission: they are indeed considering export notifications for vaccines.

"This is not about blocking, this is about knowing what the companies will export,” says a spokesman.

But what if the EU doesn’t like the information that has been notified?
The spokesman will not elaborate at this time about whether the export notification could then result in an export restriction.

But based on what they’re saying (and also what national ministers are saying), that does seem to be the plan. Otherwise what’s the point of notifying?
For instance, President @vonderleyen’s address to #Davos2021 this morning:

“The EU and others helped with money. Large sums were invested to build research capacities and production facilities early...and now the companies must deliver.”
Read 4 tweets
25 Jan
An explanation of just how serious the accusations against AstraZeneca are, in today’s Playbook.

“Either the advance production hasn’t happened, or vaccines have been produced but sold to someone else that perhaps agreed to pay more.”
More here. I think this is going to be the story of the week.
politico.eu/newsletter/bru…
EU lawmakers are furious with #AstraZeneca today. Some suspect that politics are behind company saying it will deliver less vaccines than promised to EU in coming weeks.

German centre-right MEP (and doctor) Peter Liese asked today why deliveries to EU are impacted but not to UK.
Read 4 tweets
22 Jan
Belgian PM @alexanderdecroo has tonight announced a ban on non-essential international travel, starting Wednesday 27 January and lasting until 1 March.

People coming in to or leaving Belgium will need to be doing so for one of these essential reasons: brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-a…
At the same time, the PM announced a schedule for a relaxation of Belgium’s 2nd lockdown, in place since 2 November.

“The coronavirus situation in our country has stabilised,” he said. “Our figures are better than in most other countries in Europe, thanks to our perseverance.”
“Let this be clear: we are not building a wall around our country,” De Croo says. “Coming and going is still possible, but there will have to be a good reason.”
Read 4 tweets
22 Jan
Hungary has become the first EU country to use its ability to emergency-authorise a vaccine before @EMA_News approval.

A minister says they've approved Russian vaccine Sputnik and ordered doses from Moscow.

Sputnik is not even on radar for EMA approval.
ft.com/content/20bfa7…
This could throw both Commission's procurement process and EMA's approval process into crisis.

It's essentially a gentleman's agreement not to pre-empt those two EU-level processes. Now that one country has broken ranks, will others follow?

Germany already flirted with idea.
I was told that at last night's #EUCO video summit all prime ministers and presidents expressed continued support for the Commission's joint procurement and the EMA's regulatory independence. Even Orban 🤷‍♂️.
Read 7 tweets

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