AstraZeneca says it has had a positive meeting with the EU about vaccination row

MILAN (Reuters) -AstraZeneca had a positive meeting with the European Commission last week, the Anglo-Swedish company said after an Italian newspaper said the group failed to respond to an EU complaint letter about COVID-19 within 20 days. vaccines. .

Member States of the European Union and the pharmaceutical company disagree over the delivery of shots after the group has shipped less than declared to the EU than in the original agreement.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera said on Sunday that AstraZeneca had not yet responded to a letter from the Commission on March 19 complaining about low contract deliveries of COVID-19 vaccines.

“We can confirm that we responded to the Commission within the required time frame of the dispute resolution mechanism, and that our team had a very joint meeting with the Commission last week,” said Matthew Kent, AstraZeneca’s Director of Global Media Relations, in an e -mail. message.

Earlier on Sunday, a European Commission spokesperson confirmed that on March 19, Brussels had written a letter to AstraZeneca calling it “a dispute settlement notice,” adding that this was a first step in entering into a dialogue to solve the problem.

“At this stage, we are still waiting for the necessary elements … we remain in contact with AstraZeneca to ensure timely delivery of an adequate number of doses,” the spokesperson had told Reuters, without elaborating.

Under the contract between the EU and the company, which is public, one of the parties to a dispute will first notify the issue by letter. Thereafter, 20 days after the written notice, they will “meet and attempt to resolve the dispute by negotiating in good faith”.

Under the contract for COVID-19 vaccines, the states of the European Union had expected to receive 120 million doses of AstraZeneca by the end of March, but the company had delivered only 30.12 million doses, Corriere said.

The AstraZeneca spokesperson did not comment on the supply data.

With contagion on the rise in many European countries and obstacles to vaccination campaigns, some governments are increasingly irritated by the pharmaceutical group.

“It is clear that they (AstraZeneca) have not kept their commitments and so, in a way, they are mocking us Europeans,” French Minister of European Affairs Clement Beaune said on Sunday in an interview with the LCI television news channel.

Beaune said the EU letter to the Anglo-Swedish group could even lead to a battle in court.

“We have sent a letter of formal notice in recent days, it is the start of a possible legal process if the company does not resolve things,” he said, adding that it seemed a better option to put pressure on the company to bring production into Accelerate Europe. compared to starting legal proceedings, which would take time.