Paris (AFP)
The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, called on Sunday for pharmaceutical companies to be "transparent" on the reasons for the delays in delivery of Covid vaccines announced by AstraZeneca and Pfizer.
"What we are asking from these companies is a transparent dialogue", declared Charles Michel in "Le Grand Rendez-vous" of the French radio Europe 1, the CNEWS channel and the daily Les Echos.
"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 why 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. .
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", he said.
"What is extremely positive is that mankind was able in a few months to produce the vaccines. We knew that 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.
© 2021 AFP