I see irish government ordering batches of the Astra zeneca vaccine now before the date the european agency meeting on january 29, obviously they have it on good authority that it is to be authorized. The same happened with the pFizer vaccine in December they brought the date forward due to massive political pressure and because Germany was furious that the UK, US and Israel had a got a big start on their vaccination programs with a vaccine that was actually mostly developed in Germany.
Also in late December the EMA was putting out rumours that the Astra zeneca vaccine would not be authorized and would have to do more trials, then the huge upsurge with the new variants and massive political pressure to get this authorized and out there quickly.
Methinks the EMA is not solely a scientific body and that politics is as much involved in their decisions as anything, if the upsurge in corona did not happen they would have gone through the motions with the Astra zeneca vaccine and delayed its authorization by slowing down the bureacratic hoops that had to be jumped through