PM welcomes EU stance towards drug makers over vaccine delays
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he’s pleased with the way the European Commission is pushing harder in the negotiations with drug makers to overcome the delays in the delivery of the Covid-19 vaccines.
“I am glad that the European Commission has listened to the urgings of many heads of states and governments and is now negotiating harder, more decisively, more rigorously with the large vaccine companies,” he told ministers during a virtual cabinet meeting on Thursday.
“These companies need to understand that to the extent that European money has been used in the research of these vaccines, they need to honour the contracts they have signed with the European Union,” he added.
The EU "must be able to exert the necessary influence or even pressure” on large companies to be consistent with the delivery timetable to which they were committed, he continued.
Referring to the developments with the pandemic in Greece, Mitsotakis said that the government will adjust its response to the virus if there is a third wave or a rising number of new cases.
“We are on constant alert to intervene when needed…We open activities when the cases subside, we limit them when they re-emerge,” he said.
