Good morning, Madam Chair.
I welcome the ambassador and all the other witnesses to our committee today.
I have an article from I think two or three days ago that says, “EU sues AstraZeneca over delays in vaccine deliveries”. That was over the alleged breach of its vaccine contract. The contract that appeared in the Italian magazine, from RAI, included a clause that appeared to release the company from legal action for delays on deliveries.
There's a contract between the EU and AstraZeneca that was published in the newspaper, and there's a lawsuit against the shortage or breaching of deliveries in the contract.
To the ambassador and to Mr. Verheul, what is the nature of our contracts with the vaccine suppliers, since we've been experiencing delivery shortages, delays pushing deliveries from one week to another week, which is causing us the third wave? Also, it's causing all the lockdowns and the mental health and the hardships that we're going through.
I would be interested to know, from the ambassador or from Mr. Verheul, who was involved in negotiating the contracts with the suppliers and what is the content of the contracts? How protected are we?