So the proximate issue appears to be lack of government approval for a new factory in the Netherlands. The contract issue has been done to death: the contracts the EU signed talk about best efforts. They don't actually seem to contain any penalties for "late" delivery.<p>AZ must surely see the EU as a colossal pain in the rear by now. If EU want to be treated as higher priority they're doing it all wrong because repeatedly abusing and pissing off the people who can make your vaccine is not a smart move. So far we have seen:<p>• EU leaders haggled for months over cost and didn't sign early contracts, despite AZ producing it not-for-profit.<p>• EU publicly claimed AZ were in violation of contract. AZ denied it. Then the Commission released the contract redacted, but they redacted it incorrectly which let people see the EU was lying and AZ was telling the truth.<p>• EU regulators reached same decision as UK regulators but much slower. At one point when asked why they still hadn't approved it, their answer was something like "AZ didn't contact us yet". Apparently proactively reaching out was not imaginable.<p>• Multiple EU leaders then claimed the vaccine didn't work, which turned out to be another lie.<p>• Then they briefly attempted to violate the supposedly sacrosanct and inviolable Northern Ireland protocol to stop AZ vaccine being exported <i>from</i> the EU (which didn't have any) <i>to</i> the UK (which had lots). Beyond making no sense at all this also showed the EU had been lying <i>again</i> for years during the Brexit negotiations, as they repeatedly claimed to be totally committed to NI peace process and would never accept anything that could lead to a border. All tossed out the window just weeks after the UK/EU transition period ended.<p>• EU repeatedly claimed to hate vaccine nationalism and find it totally unacceptable. Then they blocked export of AZ vaccine meant for Australia from Italy. Then they lied <i>again</i> and claimed the UK had blocked exports of vaccine materials to the EU, which had never happened.<p>• Now they started claiming the vaccine is dangerous, although according to AZ this is once again not supported by the data (similar to the claim it doesn't work). [1]<p>• And today they are <i>again</i> claiming AZ is not honouring the contracts, despite having totally failed to produce evidence this is true or even, as far as I know, start a court case related to this supposed violation.<p>By now the EU/AZ/UK relationship is a disaster zone. EU leaderships just continually obfuscate and make outright false statements about the vaccine and the people who make it. They're lucky AZ is still willing to work with them at all.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2021/update-on-the-safety-of-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2021...</a>