'The EU-AstraZeneca vaccine dispute has become extremely bitter'

28 January 2021, 17:04

The dispute over the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine between the EU and AstraZeneca has "become extremely bitter", LBC's Shelagh Fogarty has been told.

At present, the EU insisting that AstraZeneca provides the Brussels bloc with doses of the Covid-19 vaccine intended for use in the UK.

But the firm has claimed that the EU delayed signing contracts for several months, meaning the UK has got more doses of the jab earlier.

Sarah Wheaton, who is the Chief Policy Correspondent for POLITICO Europe, told LBC: "Brussels is apoplectic about this.

"But the problem is they just actually don't really have much leverage to do anything about it, and so the argument has just become extremely bitter."

She added: "The other reason that the EU is really angry is because their perception is that European Union-based manufacturing plants are supplying other countries and that this might be part of the reason that they are not able to fulfil the EU contracts.

"And so now they're in an argument about whether actually UK plants should also have to fulfil European Union orders and, as you can imagine, this is really getting tied up in the also very bitter politics of Brexit."