(UTV| NETHERLANDS) – “This is not about EU v UK. This is a problem with AstraZeneca,” claimed an EU diplomat this morning.
He and I were discussing the latest thorny chapter in EU efforts to secure the Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs written into the bloc’s contract with the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company.
The debate is now focused on a production plant in the Netherlands, manufacturing AstraZeneca vaccines.
Boris Johnson is calling a number of EU leaders ahead of their meeting on Thursday, to try to ensure that AstraZeneca jabs – or components of jabs – produced in the Halix factory won’t be blocked by the EU and kept from the UK.
EU officials say there has been no formal request by the UK for an export from Halix – yet.
But the already-existing cross-Channel strains surrounding the vaccine are infamous by now.
The EU insists AstraZeneca made different and contradictory promises to Brussels and to the UK in their respective contracts, signed last year.