The European Union will review all requests to export AstraZeneca Plc vaccines to the U.K. “very severely” and will probably reject them until the drugmaker fulfills its delivery obligations to the bloc, a senior EU official said.
Responding to comments by U.K. defense secretary Ben Wallace on Sunday that the EU must honor its vaccine contracts, the official in Brussels said it’s not the EU’s responsibility to help Astra deliver on its commitments to the U.K.
The EU has its own contracts with the company which are not currently being respected, and any vaccines and ingredients produced in European factories will for now be reserved for local deliveries, said the official, who asked not to be named because the decisions are under consideration and haven’t been made public.
The EU and the U.K. have been at loggerheads over vaccine exports since Astra informed Brussels that it would not be in a position to deliver the shots it had promised to the bloc. The row is becoming increasingly toxic, with the two sides blaming each other of export curbs and nationalism, and some fear the spat could pose a risk for the fragile post-Brexit trade relationship agreed on last December.
Full story over at Bloomberg
