There is non-discrimination and free trade within the EU. Australia isn’t a member of the EU.

The EU has no regular authority to 'enforce' contracts in such a matter, how any company decides to delivery is up to that company.

If Italy wants to sue or sue for damages, it can try do to that.

For example, if this were procurement of some kind of automobile, Italy would not be in a position to 'ban' shipments outside of the EU.

This is happening because:

1) 'Emergency Powers'

2) EU's failure to acquire vaccines through normal operations.

3) Optics and populism. Every politician in the world is sweating right now.

Otherwise, the issue would have be taken up on court.

I think those things apply (or are prioritised) within the block.

> IIRC they said AstraZeneca vaccine is not very effective.

Do you have a source on that? The vaccine was not certified in certain countries for certain age groups.

I don't know if this is what the OP was referring to, as this is not the EU themselves:

- French president Emmanuel Macron claimed that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was "quasi-ineffective" for over-65s, hours before it was approved by regulators for use on all adults in the EU.

- The German newspaper Handelsblatt that suggested the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was 8% effective among over 65s, which was a misunderstanding and the German health ministry challenged it.

I suspect both of the above had an impact on public perception, especially in France, but neither were actually the EU saying it. One was silly and the other a mistake.

Ursula von der Leyen did, however, suggest the UK had compromised safety by approving the AZ so early (even though the MHRA who approved it are generally reckoned to be one of the best medical regulators in the world).

However, this 60% number is for totally preventing a COVID infection. The AZ vaccine is just as much, or even more effective at preventing severe illness / hospitalization.

I do blame the EU commission for the general narrative about the AZ vaccine, as it has negative consequences directly with the public : in NL ( and in DE as well if I am not mistaken ), there are people who don't want the AZ vaccine because of this.

So I do blame the EU commission on endangering the general public health of its constituents.

As the comment you replied to asked; do you have an actual source for that? The "much quoted" thing is not a source, it is simply weasel words.

For what it's worth, some national-level politicians have said some negative comments about it, but I can't recall hearing any EU commission figures commenting negatively about it (being cautious about it; sure, but negative, I can't recall any). Happy to be proved wrong though.

Possibly worse situation in Germany where blatent misinformation was published regarding the Oxford vaccine. Consider the gravity of this given Germany's population is far more "anti-vac" than say the UK.

The EU and Germany/France in particular did a stellar job of destroying the Oxford vaccine's credibility.

Happy to be proved wrong though.

It would be shooting itself in the foot to admit the vaccines it had bought in a group-buy scheme were ineffective or in any way sub-standard. Member states would be furious, and Ursula would have been gone.

This article has a summary of statements from different politicians - https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-what-eu-leaders-said-abo... The closest I can see for the EC is one from Ursula, with the article reporting:

"She then suggested the UK had compromised on "safety and efficacy" by approving the jab so early, despite the EMA reaching the same conclusions as the UK's internationally-respected MHRA which approved the vaccine."

(That is realistically just her attempts to excuse a slower approval process that ultimately reached exactly the same outcome)

That is not very nice to say.

!g astrazeneca 60% effective site:.eu :

First hit : https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/ema-recommends-covid-19-va...

Please note I blame them for the general narrative around AZ as being not trustworthy. It is very clear to see in comments from the Dutch public ( and I have seen similar sentiments at our DE neighbors ).

It does not help our press is not very critical, I'll give you that.

On the note of that press release, the title of the page is "EMA recommends COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca for authorisation in the EU", which I wouldn't consider anti-AZ, and reading the text it states in the same paragraph that it's talking about "reduction in the number of symptomatic COVID-19 cases in people given the vaccine".

Anyway, I didn't mean to offend, just calling out what I saw, others may have a different opinion to me of course.

This move by the EU just shows Van der Leyen's floundering and the EU showing again the limits of its efficacy as a governing organization.