Phillippe Lamberts told the BBC’s Today Programme that AstraZeneca is a company that cannot be relied upon and pointed to a lack of commitment to European Union orders. However, Justin Webb pointed out that the trading bloc currently has millions of doses of the Oxford jab in storage despite bemoaning the delay in further vaccines arriving.
Mr Lamberts said: “What we have with AstraZeneca is a company that is not straightforward, that cannot be relied upon.
“They commit, they de-commit, they de-commit on new commitments without any warning.
“That is really the snag, they supply other customers on schedule and it is only recently that AstraZeneca has started to de-commit British orders.”
Mr Webb interjected: “All of that would sound more cogent coming from the European side if it was not the case that there are literally millions of AstraZeneca doses that are available in Europe but are not being used and just stored.”
The Belgian MEP replied: “There you have a point, I will make no dispute about that.”
More to follow…
