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Originally Posted by 1andrew1
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Paragraph I appears to be key.
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The development, production, advance sale and supply of the Product as per this APA require significant investments by the contractor to increase the speed of vaccine research and development and clinical trials and the preparation of the at-scale production capacity along the entire production value chain in the EU required for a rapid deployment of the millions of doses of the Product. The Commission as well as the participating Member States are willing to contribute to financing of those investments in the form of up-front payments.
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If there's an equivalent clause in the AstraZeneca contract, then that is what Pascal Soirot is referring to when he insists that it is development of capacity within the EU, that has occurred
since the AZ/EU contract was signed, and funded with money from the EU, that is to be used to supply the EU. These newer facilities are the ones that are still having the bugs worked out of them and are therefore not going to allow AZ to deliver as much vaccine to the EU as the EU wants.
The EU yesterday tried to insist it has a stake in the UK facilities because its money helped to develop them. AstraZeneca appears to refute this. It will be interesting to see if the EU continues to press that point, because it will get very political very quickly if the EU and the UK governments have to argue in public over whether the plants in Oxford, Keele and Wrexham were tooled up with British or European money.
*If* Paragraph I is taken to mean that AZ undertook to develop facilities with EU money only after it signed a contract with the EU, and if EU funding was indeed only spent on new facilities in Belgium and elsewhere in the EU (and, notably, *not* on further developing facilities within the UK) then paragraph L holes the EU case below the waterline:
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The participating Member States acknowledge that, in light of the uncertainties both with respect to the development of the Product and the accelerated establishment of sufficient manufacturing capacities, the delivery dates set out in this APA are the contractor's current best estimates only and subject to change. Due to possible delays in the authorisation, production and release of the Product, no Product or only reduced volumes of the Product may be available at the estimated delivery dates set out in this APA. In the case of delays to the anticipated availability of the Product, the contractor aims to allocate the doses of the Product fairly across the demand of doses, which the contractor has or will contractually commit to towards its present and future customers, as such doses become available.
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It's there in black and white. This is a contract committing the manufacturer to 'best estimates only and subject to change.' If AstraZeneca has this same basic agreement then the EU hasn't got a leg to stand on, unless it can prove that its development money has been spent in the UK. Perhaps this is why they've been raiding facilities today. They need a paper trail.
Of course, whether they will find one is highly debatable. AstraZeneca's press release last June announcing the deal with the EU was quite explicit about its strategy for developing complete supply chains in each major territory where it signs a deal:
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Pascal Soriot, Chief Executive Officer, said: “This agreement will ensure that hundreds of millions of Europeans have access to Oxford University’s vaccine following approval. With our European supply chain due to begin production soon, we hope to make the vaccine available widely and rapidly. I would like to thank the governments of Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands for their commitment and swift response.”
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So when Soirot gave that interview to La Repubblica this week insisting that AstraZeneca developed facilities within the EU in order to supply vaccine to the EU, he wasn't retconning company strategy. This is what they said they were doing, nearly 7 months ago.
I really think the EU is sunk here.