The British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has to deliver another 50 million doses of its corona vaccine to the EU by the end of September.

A Brussels court decided on Friday.

It falls far short of the expectations of the EU Commission, which sued the vaccine manufacturer in April for the delivery of 120 million doses by the end of June and a further 180 million doses by the end of September.

These delivery quantities were agreed in the delivery contract in August 2020.

The Brussels authority was outraged by the delivery failures that occurred several times in the winter.

Werner Mussler

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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    Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen called the judgment a success, because the Brussels judge clearly stated that the company had broken its contractual obligations.

    AZ delivered a lot less

    The manufacturer emphasized, however, that he had already delivered more than 70 million cans and that the delivery obligations now ordered by the court could easily be met by September.

    Above all, the Brussels judge found that the EU did not have full access to the contractually agreed quantities in the event of production failures.

    The background to the lawsuit was that the company has so far delivered significantly less vaccine to the EU than was stated in the order contract from August 2020.

    It said AZ would deliver "best efforts" in the first quarter of the year 120 million cans and in the second 180 million cans.

    In fact, the EU received 30 million doses in the first quarter of the year; AZ had initially promised 70 million doses for the second quarter, but will probably not keep this promise either.

    The company justifies the failures with production difficulties.

    The Brussels authority, on the other hand, was irritated by the fact that AZ had largely fulfilled its delivery obligations in Great Britain.

    Lawyers had pointed out early on that the British government had negotiated better with the company than the EU representatives. 

    The lawsuit had been controversial from the start because it threatened to harm the reputation of the AZ vaccine. After vaccination with the vaccine, cerebral vein thromboses have occurred in extremely rare individual cases. While the EU drug agency Ema still recommends giving the product unreservedly, the authorities in the member states have in some cases imposed age-related restrictions.