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 using the company on the grounds that it massively under-delivered pledged coronavirus vaccine doses to the bloc.
However, five to six countries, including large states like Germany and France, raised concerns about launching a lawsuit against AstraZeneca, according to several diplomats. One of the concerns, as one diplomat explained, is that a lawsuit wouldn't guarantee that the EU got more doses.
Further, some ambassadors warned that a lawsuit would further diminish citizens’ trust in the vaccine because it would sully the image of AstraZeneca.
According to some of the diplomats, the Commission also hasn't elaborated to EU countries on its legal reasoning for such a move, prompting intense debate at the meeting: The lawsuit would address the company’s failure to meet the delivery schedule set out in its EU advance-purchasing agreement, while the point is to make it mandatory for AstraZeneca to provide the doses set out in its EU contract.
Another point of contention among some countries is that the issue is not just contractual but political — and as such, requires member countries to be more involved in the contracts that the Commission negotiates with companies.