Brussels today launched legal action against vaccine-maker AstraZeneca, claiming they had not held up their end of the contract for supplies of the jab.
The European Commission (EC) said the firm did not have a "reliable" plan to ensure timely deliveries. Under the contract, the company had committed to making its "best reasonable efforts" to deliver 180 million vaccine doses to the EU in the second quarter of this year, for a total of 300 million in the period from December to June.
But the company said in a statement on March 12 it would aim to deliver only one-third of that. A week after that, the EU Commission sent a legal letter to the company in the first step of a formal procedure to resolve disputes. "The Commission has started last