The European Commission (EC) on Wednesday called on the British-Swedish AstraZeneca pharmaceutical company "to live up to its contractual, societal and moral obligations" and deliver the agreed COVID-19 vaccine supplies.

The EU signed a contract with AstraZeneca for the delivery of 400 million doses of its vaccine. In the meantime the company has informed that it will be late in delivering the vaccine. Croatia has pre-ordered 2.7 million doses of the vaccine from this producer.

Two other producers Pfizer and Moderna are also running late with deliveries of their vaccines.

“We signed an Advance Purchase Agreement for a product which at the time did not exist, and which still today is not yet authorised. And we signed it precisely to ensure that the company builds the manufacturing capacity to produce the vaccine early, so that they can deliver a certain volume of doses the day that it is authorised,” European Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakides told a press conference on Wednesday.

She rejected a statement by AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot that the contract contains a provision that the company would do all it can to meet its obligations but that that did not oblige the company to deliver the vaccine at any specific time.

“The view that the company is not obliged to deliver because we signed a ‘best effort’ agreement is neither correct nor is it acceptable,” said Kyriakides.

A senior EU official was quoted by media as saying that the bloc had already paid part of a €336 million ($406 million) down payment with the aim of boosting production, and Kyriakides rejected the logic of “first come, first served.”