Germany Threatens Legal Action over COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Delays

On Sunday, Germany’s government warned of taking legal action against laboratories failing to deliver coronavirus vaccines to the European Union on scheduled time, amid tension over delays to deliveries from AstraZeneca.

"If it turns out that companies have not respected their obligations, we will have to decide the legal consequences," Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told German daily Die Welt.

"No company can favour another country over the EU after the fact," Altmaier stressed.

There has been rising tension in recent weeks between European leaders and the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, which has fallen behind on promised delivers of its Covid-19 vaccine.

The company stated that it could only deliver a quarter of the doses originally promised to the bloc for the first quarter of the year due to problems at one of its European factories.

Brussels has accused AstraZeneca of giving preferential treatment to UK in the delivery of its vaccine, at the expense of the EU.

Germany’s top officials are going to meet with the drugs manufacturers in order to thrash out the problems over the delays.

On the same context, the EU briefly threatened to restrict vaccine exports to Northern Ireland by overriding part of the Brexit deal with Britain, allowing the free flow of goods over the Irish border.

However; It backed down after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson voiced "grave concerns."

The EU clarified it was in fact “not triggering the safeguard clause” and called its earlier decision an “oversight.”

Yesterday, Germany closed its borders to people, arriving from the five countries affected by the Covid-19 variants, in order to protect the German population.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn announced that the country will be prohibiting arrivals from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, Portugal and South Africa, until 17th February.