BRUSSELS: The European Union said Monday it has launched legal action against pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca over coronavirus vaccine delivery shortfalls that hampered efforts to kickstart inoculations across the bloc. “The Commission has started last Friday a legal action against the company AstraZeneca on the basis of breaches of the advanced purchase agreement,” EU spokesman Stefan De Keersmaecker said.

“Some terms of the contract have not been respected and the company has not been in a position to come up with a reliable strategy to ensure the timely delivery of doses.”

De Keersmaecker said the action was launched by the EU executive “on behalf of the 27 member states that are fully aligned in their support of this procedure”.

“What matters to us in this case is that we want to make sure that there’s a speedy delivery of a sufficient number of doses that European citizens are entitled to, and which have been promised on the basis of the contract,” he said. British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca dismissed the legal action as “without merit” and insisted “we welcome this opportunity to resolve this dispute as soon as possible”.

“AstraZeneca has fully complied with the Advance Purchase Agreement with the European Commission and will strongly defend itself in court,” it said in a statement. The commission and company have been locked in a feud over a major shortfall in deliveries that hobbled early efforts in the bloc to roll out jabs.

AstraZeneca said it is due to have delivered about 50 million doses to Europe by the end of April, but that is far lower than the amount Brussels insists should have come. The commission said the firm only provided 31 million of 120 million expected doses in the first three months of this year. The company has warned it will send just 70 million from another 180 million doses initially promised by June.