Just so - I've seen this elsewhere too

I found the AZ CEO quite credible in his Repubblica interview (in English): User Posted Link

At the risk of straying into the Forbidden Zone, and as someone who was a strong Remainer, I think the issue here is that the Commission has gone beyond its competence - not legal competence, but competence competence. France, Germany and Italy all wanted to negotiate direct with AZ but were - rightly, in my view - persuaded that the EU should negotiate en bloc (rightly because of scale/leverage in the negotiaions and because it means poorer countries would also get their share). However what should then have happened is either the French or the Germans or the Italians should have done the negotiation, but for the whole EU. This is because national governments are used to these kind of complex procurements - think hospitals, warships, that kind of thing; the EU has never done anything like it, and probably doesnt' understand the way supply chains need to be set up or the realities of scaling biotech production in the way required for vaccines - as Soriot points out, what has been done is unprecedented, and the UK supply chain also experienced issues (remember, our first lot was supposed to arrive in September; it didn't arrive till December). The behaviour of the EC since has been faintly ridiculous - again, this from a strong remainer - the kind of spoilt toddlerisms that so endeared Donald Trump to the world.

The Uk has got so much wrong on covid: timings of and exits from lockdowns, PPE, etc; but on sourcing the vaccines it's done a really good job (imho). Other European governments would have done a similarly good job had they been allowed to; this is not the Commission's finest hour.

Posted By: Old Man, Jan 28, 16:40:14