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 had not responded to an EU letter of complaint about COVID-19 vaccines in a within 20 days.
EU Member States and the pharmaceutical company are at odds over the delivery of fire after the group shipped less than indicated to the EU than in the original agreement.
The Italian daily Corriere della Sera said on Sunday that AstraZeneca had not yet reacted to a letter sent by the Commission on 19 March to complain about the supply of COVID-19 vaccines under reduced contracts.
“We can confirm that we have responded to the Commission in time for the dispute settlement mechanism and that our team had a very collaborative meeting with the Commission last week,” Matthew Kent, Director of Global Media Relations, Matthew Kent, told -an e-mail. message.
Earlier on Sunday, a European Commission spokesman confirmed that Brussels had written to AstraZeneca on 19 March, calling it “a dispute resolution opinion”, adding that it was a first step towards 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 the timely delivery of a sufficient number of doses,” the spokesman told Reuters, without elaborating.
Under the contract signed between the EU and the company, which is public, in the event of a dispute, one of the parties will first notify the matter with a letter. Then, 20 days after the written notification, they “will meet and try to resolve the dispute through good faith negotiations.”
According to the contract signed for COVID-19 vaccines, European Union states expected to receive 120 million doses by the end of March from AstraZeneca, but the company provided only 30.12 million doses, Corriere said.
AstraZeneca spokesman did not comment on the supply data.
Given the growing contagion in many European countries and vaccination campaigns affecting obstacles, some governments have shown growing irritation with the pharmaceutical group.
“Clearly, they (AstraZeneca) have not honored their commitments and so, in a way, they were making fun of us Europeans,” French Foreign Minister Clement Beaune told the TV news channel on Sunday. LCI.
Beaune said the EU’s letter to the Anglo-Swedish group could even lead to a court battle.
“We have sent a formal notification in recent days, it is the beginning of a possible lawsuit if the company does not fix things,” he said, adding that putting pressure on the company to speed up production in Europe seems like a better option compared to starting a legal process that would take time.
Additional reports by Kate Abnett in Brussels and Richard Lough in Paris; edited by David Evans