The President of the European Council, Charles Michel.

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Olivier Hoslet / AP / SIPA

The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, demanded this Sunday that pharmaceutical companies show "transparency" on the reasons for the delays in delivery of the Covid vaccines announced by AstraZeneca and Pfizer.

Charles Michel was the guest of the 

Grand Rendez-vous

 of the French radio Europe 1, the CNEWS channel and the daily

Les Echos

.

Delivery of vaccines: "We intend to enforce contracts", says Charles Michel https://t.co/8tUrvTHOKh

- Europe 1 🎧🌍📻 (@ Europe1) January 24, 2021

"It is certain (…) that we intend to enforce the contracts which have been validated by pharmaceutical companies", affirmed the President of the Council, which represents the 27 Member States of the European Union.

"We see that we must roll up our sleeves and fight to have clarity on the reasons for which sometimes delays have been announced", he continued.

"But when the delays of several weeks were announced by Pfizer, we saw that we reacted firmly, we banged our fists on the table and finally the announced delays of several weeks were reduced", he said. .

"We knew that the implementation would be difficult"

Charles Michel, however, showed understanding of the industrial difficulties encountered by laboratories.

"We understand well when there are companies that have to set up production chains that there may be obstacles, there may at some point be difficulties in supplying the raw materials that are necessary", a he said.

“What is extremely positive is that humanity has been able to produce the vaccines within a few months.

We knew the implementation would be difficult, ”he said.

After delays announced by Pfizer in deliveries of Covid vaccines, a similar announcement from AstraZeneca on Friday sparked concern and anger in Europe, engaged in a speed race over the appearance of new more dangerous variants of the Coronavirus.

The EU has signed a total of six vaccine contracts with pharmaceutical companies and is in discussions with two more, for more than 2.5 billion potential doses.

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  • Vaccination

  • European Council