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The telegraph
France, Germany consider sanctions against vaccine suppliers as EU wrangles over delays escalates
France and Germany on Sunday threatened legal action against AstraZeneca as they scramble to explain their vaccine shortages and have warned that any company that favors UK orders for jabs would be penalized. Clément Beaune, the French minister for Europe, threatened the Anglo-Swedish firm, which produces the Oxford vaccine, with sanctions if it turned out that Great Britain had been a priority. “If there is a problem and other countries have been favored – for example the UK over us – then we will defend our interests,” Beaune said on Sunday. “Contracts are not moral commitments, they are legal commitments. Penalties or sanctions can be triggered in every contract.” It came as Berlin and Rome launched similar threats to vaccine suppliers, in the latest stage of a bitter dispute in Europe over delays in the production and delivery of Covid vaccines. “If we find that individual companies are not maintaining their market share, then we will have to make a decision on the legal measures,” Peter Altmaier, Germany’s Minister of Economy, told Die Welt newspaper. Mr. Altmaier, a close confidant of Chancellor Angela Merkel, also warned vaccine producers that “it is by no means acceptable for another country to be retrospectively favored over the EU”. AstraZeneca has announced that it will deliver 4.6 million doses to France by the end of March, half of the amount initially agreed. It has also significantly reduced its delivery targets for the EU for the first quarter of the year, which has led to a furious reaction from Brussels, which accuses the company of offering preferential treatment to the UK. Among the sanctions envisaged by France are withholding taxes, the cancellation of subsequent orders and the request for compensation for breach of contract. Mr Beaune said an investigation into vaccine shipments to Britain from EU-based factories was already underway. As the third wave of the coronavirus spreads across the continent, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, is resisting calls for a third lockdown and has instead tightened existing restrictions. “When you are French, you have everything you need to succeed, provided you dare to try,” he reportedly told ministers on Friday, although the refusal to declare a complete lockdown went against the recommendations of its own scientific advisers. Polish police fired tear gas and stun grenades over the weekend as they closed nightclubs and illegal parties in the cities of Wroclaw and Rybnik. As in other European cities, some companies have opened up to trade in defiance of the rules as protests against Covid restrictions erupted in the Netherlands, Spain, France and Denmark. Dutch police arrested at least 30 people in Amsterdam on Sunday as they struggled to prevent another outbreak of anti-lockdown riots. Thousands of protesters also took to the streets of Vienna over the weekend, taking part in an anti-lockout protest organized by a far-right group. Similar scenes unfolded in Hungary, where a group of 100 restaurants said they would reopen despite threats of heavy government fines. It also emerged over the weekend that Boris Johnson forced the EU to do two U-turns on vaccines after Brussels tried to prevent doses at a Belgian factory from reaching the UK and decided to impose a hard border in Northern Ireland for the same purpose. In two phone calls with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, Mr Johnson allegedly persuaded the EU chief to drop the two proposals, the Mail on Sunday reported. Micheál Martin, the taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), told the BBC on Sunday that they were “blinded” by the EU’s threat to close the border. “The problem is that the commission took the wrong mechanism in revoking Article 16 of the protocol to deal with it,” he said, adding that there were “a lot of lessons to be learned” on the supplies of vaccines. On Sunday evening, Ms von der Leyen announced on Twitter that the EU would increase its vaccine supply this week. “[AstraZeneca] will deliver 9 million more doses in the first quarter (40 million in total) compared to last week’s offer and start deliveries a week ahead of schedule. The company will also expand its manufacturing capacity in Europe, ”she writes.
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