EU calls on AstraZeneca to honour commitments

Brussels, Jan 28 : European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides has called on AstraZeneca to live up to its contractual, societal, and moral obligations as the European Union (EU) has criticised the company for not being able to deliver the amount of Covid-19 vaccine as agreed.
“Let me be crystal clear: the 27 EU Member States are united that AstraZeneca needs to deliver on its commitments in our agreement. We are in a pandemic. We lose people every day. These are not numbers. They are not statistics. These are persons, with families, with friends and colleagues that are all affected as well,” Xinhua news agency quoted Kyriakides as saying at a press conference on Wednesday.
The top Commissioner made the remarks as she was giving the latest update amid continuous talks with the UK-based company over its new schedule that considerably cut doses supply to the EU.
AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot rejected claims that his company was failing to honour its commitments.
He told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that the contract was a “best effort” commitment which means it would try its best.
Kyriakides rejected this statement, saying the view that the company was not obliged to deliver was “neither correct nor acceptable”.