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The European Union will enforce the contracts for the supply of vaccines signed with various pharmaceutical companies.

This was stated this Sunday by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, in statements to several French media.

Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company whose Covid vaccine received the first go-ahead from the European regulatory agency, announced last week that it was temporarily reducing the quantity of vaccines delivered to Europe because it needed to improve its manufacturing capacity.

On Friday, AstraZeneca, which also has a vaccine candidate about to receive the green light in Europe, also warned that it would not be able to supply the batches initially committed due to production problems.

Those announced delays have raised several criticisms in recent hours.

"Our plan is to make the pharmaceutical companies respect the contracts they have signed ... using the legal means at our disposal," Michel told French radio station Europe 1.

Michel did not mention the use of possible sanctions, but he did insist on the need to demand "transparency" about the reasons for the delays.

In this sense, he recalled that the first statements by Pfizer referred to a delay of several weeks, but, after the intervention of the EU, which maintained a firm position, the delays were reduced, he said.

"What we demand from companies is a transparent dialogue," Michel said in statements to French radio Europa 1, the CNEWS network and the daily Les Echos.

Still, MIchel has been sympathetic about the difficulties pharmaceutical companies face.

Italy has also announced that it will take legal action against the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca for reducing the batch of coronavirus vaccines, as it has already done with Pfizer and BioNtech for the same reasons, as announced by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

"We will use all instruments and all legal initiatives, as we are already doing with Pfizer-BioNtech, to claim respect for contractual commitments and protect our national community," he said on his social networks.

The Italian Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza, has met with the directors of AstraZeneca in the country and they have confirmed the reduction of shipments due to production problems of the compound.

"All this is unacceptable, our vaccination plan, approved by Parliament and ratified by the State-Regions Conference, has been prepared based on contractual commitments freely signed by pharmaceutical companies and the European Commission, he denounced.

Conte explained that the regions are thus forced to slow down vaccination campaigns and this in turn causes "enormous damage to Italy and the rest of European countries with direct consequences on the life and health" of people and on the economic fabric and Social.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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