Brussels Edition: Demanding More Doses

Welcome to the Brussels Edition, Bloomberg’s daily briefing on what matters most in the heart of the European Union.

The EU will seek today to resolve a standoff with AstraZeneca which threatens to disrupt the region’s vaccination program, trigger a global spat between countries vying for coronavirus shots, and exacerbate a backlash over prolonged lockdowns. During a crunch call, officials representing EU governments and the European Commission will tell Astra executives that the company must promptly deliver the vaccines the bloc says it was promised. The EU responded with fury to the drugmaker’s warning of significant delays, vowing to enact a “transparency mechanism” to monitor exports. The company said that it’s doing its best and that the EU with 5% of the world population is getting 17% of the available doses of a not-for-profit vaccine. The risk is that any protectionist measures by the EU could trigger retaliation from other nations, disrupting the flow of life-saving shots just as billions of people wait to be inoculated.