AstraZeneca told the U on Friday it could not meet agreed supply targets to the end of March within you official involved in the talks, telling Reuters that meant a 60% cut to 31 million doses.

The complications stem from supply chain issues with a manufacturing site in Belgium run by AstraZeneca's partner Nover Set.

The Anglo Swedish drugmaker received an up front payment of €336 million from the EU for at least 300 million doses, according to three U officials.

Speaking to Reuters.

Eric Mama is the EU Commission's chief spokesman.

The president spoke to the CEO of AstraZeneca this morning by phone Mr Paschal Soyo and she made it clear that she expects extra Zenica to deliver on the contractual arrangements foreseen in the advance purchasing agreement.

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Sorry Oh explained how complicated the situation was from their point of view when speaking at the World Economic Forum on Monday.

We're trying to do collectively here, has never been done in the history of the world, develop a vaccine or several vaccines in that instance in in a year and then scared upto billions of those whose, when we know today, the biggest manufacturer has only got a capacity of a billion doses per year across all the vaccines.

So it's a huge undertaking.

You contracts with vaccine makers are confidential, but you official did not rule out penalties for AstraZeneca, given the large revision to its commitments.

This marks the latest vaccine related frustration for the U.

The version, developed by Pfizer, is currently the most use across the bloc, but earlier in January, it also announced delayed in its supply.

AstraZeneca's vaccine is expected to be approved for use in the U on January 29th, with first deliveries expected from the middle of next month.