One of the main reasons vaccination rates are so low in Europe is down to supply. And one of the reasons supply is low is because EU ordered doses late. Why? It seems the issue of liability is important. A thread on how to think about the main issues at play.

What is liability? In short, if something goes wrong (e.g. people die as a result of being vaccinated, or have nasty side-effects) it is the manufacturer that compensates victims.
Generally speaking this is smart: you want people to make things to be responsible for their quality

Now, most other rich countries, like Britain and America, said "to hell with liability". If it holds up delivery of vaccines, there is no point.

The European Commission, which bought vaccines for the EU, said it didn't want to waive it. Here the EU's top health official in Sept:

This focus on liability seems silly to me. It's not going to encourage companies to make better vaccine - they are already flat out, at the cutting edge of their field. We know there are risks involved. If things go wrong here, whoever makes a bad vaccine will go bust regardless.

Would being able to sue Pfizer if its vaccine had a bad impact really be helpful? These companies have deep pockets. But the kinds of liability we are talking about can only be taken on by one actor: the state. Underwriting big risk is a core function of the state in fact.

Nitpicking on liability at EU level is completely at odds with the "whatever it takes" approach of national governments. The Commission negotiated a very marginal benefit (yay, we get to sue Pfizer if things go wrong!) but delayed vaccinations by weeks, at a cost of billions.

Pinning liability on companies has cost the EU in a few ways. First it slowed down negotiations. Weeks and weeks seem to have been lost in allocating liability if things went wrong. It probably raised prices (though the EU got a better deal than, eg, the UK)

Another cost was that releasing manufacturers of liability meant drugs could be approved faster. In the US and UK, "emergency" approvals went very fast. But these assume liability falls on the authorities, not the companies. So the EU went a slower route...

...with a fuller authorisation. There may be good reason to take the fuller route to approving vaccines for public use (it lowers risk), experts disagree. But the EU, which wanted to keep manufacturers liable, stuck itself in the slow lane. AZ was approved only last week.

I think there are a couple of reasons why the EU went this route. First, even more so than other governments, Brussels has a box-ticking culture. Deviating from best-practice is frowned upon. This is quite good (if cumbersome) in normal times but I'd say not suitable for a crisis

Second, the EU is negotiating on behalf of member states. If liability were to be waived and something went wrong, it is member states who would be on the hook. The Commission would have been reluctant to write a liability cheque it couldn't cash.

This is arguably a flaw with the EU (remember the eurozone crisis?) You might have found a way of allocating liability from EU to member states. But good luck arranging in August, with lots of people away.
Easier to force manufacturers to keep liability, even if it risks delays.

Finally, the EU can deflect the concerns of its many anti-vaxxers, who might point to manufacturers not being liable for vaccines they make as another concern.

I really hope we don't run policy to cater to conspiracy theorists, but it may have been a factor.

So the EU got manufacturers to keep full liability. It saved itsely hypothetical millions at the cost of actual billions.

I suspect this decision still matters. UK for example has gone for spreading two vaccine doses approach, France is sticking with manufacturer recommendations. I would guess the liability question remains: do you invalidate the warranty if you don't use the vaccine as instructed?