The European Union in tussle with AstraZeneca publishes its contract with the laboratory
The contract between the Anglo-Swedish laboratory AstraZeneca and the European Union has been disclosed by the European Commission.
© JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP
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3 min
The European Medicines Agency should in principle give the green light this Friday afternoon for the approval of the vaccine from the Anglo-Swedish laboratory AstraZeneca.
At the same time, the European Union has just published the contract that binds it to the laboratory, while it has announced that it cannot provide the promised quantities of vaccine.
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With our correspondent in Brussels,
Pierre Benazet
The European Commission has just released a 41-page document entitled "
Prior purchase agreement
", which all legal experts and specialists are analyzing.
It is dated August 27, 2020 and contains several blackened pages due to trade secrecy as in the previously published contract with CureVac.
But unlike this one, the contract with AstraZeneca is accessible to everyone and not just to MEPs.
The blackened pages contain in particular the production costs.
Commission wants to prove it's right
According to the European Commission, these contracts will prove that AstraZeneca is wrongly taking refuge behind a best effort clause.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the clause only applied until the vaccine was ready and licensed.
The Commission hopes to prove with these contracts on the one hand that the Anglo-Swedish laboratory is required to deliver the planned doses.
And on the other hand that no country has priority over vaccines made at a production site,
not even the UK
for
UK
factories.
The contract also indicates that the British factories will have to produce for the European order.
In any case, if the vaccine is approved by the European Medicines Agency, it would then become the third to be placed on the European market.
The product is already in circulation in the UK, India and Brazil.
As a reminder, AstraZeneca's vaccine has the advantage of being less restrictive to store than the other two since it can be stored in a simple refrigerator and not at very low temperature.
►Also read: Vaccine against Covid-19: the standoff between the EU and the AstraZeneca laboratory
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