BRUSSELS (AP) – The European Union’s dispute with AstraZeneca intensified on Wednesday, with the Anglo-Swedish drug maker denying the EU’s allegation that it had withdrawn from talks over vaccine supply.
AstraZeneca said in a statement that it still planned to meet with EU officials in Brussels later that day. The comments came after EU officials said the company had informed the bloc that it would not attend a meeting to discuss delayed vaccination obligations – the third of such talks in as many days.
“The AstraZeneca representative had announced this morning, informed us this morning that their participation has not been confirmed, is not happening,” said Dana Spinant, the spokeswoman for the European Commission.
The feud between AstraZeneca and the EU has raised concerns about vaccination nationalism as countries are desperate to end the pandemic and return to business as usual due to the limited supply of the precious vaccination shots.
The latest disagreement between the two sides came after AstraZeneca rejected the EU’s accusation that the company had failed to honor its commitments to supply coronavirus vaccines. AstraZeneca said the numbers in the contract with the EU were targets that could not be met due to problems with rapidly growing production capacity.
Chief Executive Pascal Soriot made the comments in an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica after days of criticism from EU leaders outraged at news that AstraZeneca’s initial deliveries would be lower than expected.
The Anglo-Swedish drug company said last week that it planned to reduce initial deliveries in the EU from 80 million to 31 million doses due to reduced yields in the manufacturing process.
“Our contract is not a contractual commitment,” said Soriot. “It’s a best attempt. In fact, we said we will do our best, but we cannot guarantee that we will succeed. In fact, we slowed a bit to get there. “
AstraZeneca said in a statement that it understands and shares “the frustration that the initial delivery volumes of our vaccine delivered to the European Union will be lower than predicted.”
On Monday, the EU threatened to impose strict export controls on COVID-19 vaccines made in the bloc within days.
The EU, which has 450 million citizens and the economic and political clout of the world’s largest trade bloc, is lagging far behind countries like Israel and Britain in rolling out coronavirus vaccination shots for its health workers and the most vulnerable people. That’s despite the fact that there have been more than 400,000 confirmed virus deaths since the pandemic began.
The shortage of planned deliveries of the AstraZeneca vaccine comes at the same time as a delay in the distribution of Pfizer BioNTech shots as that company modernizes production facilities at a factory in Belgium.
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Kirka reported from London.
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