Hacker News Reader

Comment by robotmay | Hacker News Reader

From what I've gathered (unfortunately mostly on Reddit, before this article), Ursula von der Leyen wasn't exactly fondly thought of in Germany before this and somehow keeps managing to fail upwards. Is that accurate?

The utterly bonkers u-turn today was a bit of a shocker. For those that haven't seen the news, the European Commission managed to say they were effectively going to establish border controls between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Which was a pretty big surprise to both the ROI and the UK. The first not being consulted on the decision, and the UK somehow being blamed for a contractual dispute between the EU and AstraZeneca. They've now backed out of this decision: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/29/eu-controls-on...

Even if the UK was somehow being duplicitous here, and had somehow undermined the EU vaccine program, the EC/EU has made themselves look like total amateurs by whining about it in public and trying to shift the blame and conflating the UK & AstraZeneca. I think they really need to sit a bunch of the big names down together and actually plan their public strategy; Macron's been out today going in a completely different direction but somehow also circling back to blame the UK and simultaneously claiming (falsely) that the Oxford vaccine has a less than 10% success rate in over 65s, which probably isn't going to boost vaccine adoption: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/29/emmanuel-macro...

It has been an...odd day, as someone who is a very pro-EU, remain-voting, UK citizen. God knows we deserve plenty of blame as a nation but I don't really feel like it's altogether deserved this time.

View on HN

Leyen failing upwards is a pretty accurate description of her political career in Germany.

She was never popular, one of her first "big ideas", as the head of the ministry for families, was to introduce DNS Internet-censorship against child pornography, which ultimately failed due to the public backlash.

Like many other German career politicians, her doctors dissertation was found to be partly plagiarized.

Her changes to the family allowances were across the board unpopular: High income couples profited the most from these changes, while middle and lower income classes lost out.

There's even an active committee of inquiry still going on into her habit of hiring external, private, consultants to do the work for her at ministries. As a response to that she had the data on her mobile phone deleted, official files illegally redacted, and other data, that could be used as evidence, straight up deleted.

For many Germans she's the definition of what's wrong with German politics because she didn't get where she is out of her own abilities, but rather as a consequence of her family having had that kind of influence in Germany for generations [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_family

She is a product of the CDU - which promotes based on internal networks, not quality results. I would say she's not one of the worst politicians - everyone with that length in public life has a few scandals. I haven't forgiven her for her censorship laws, but the other 'scandals' seem rather be a matter of hubris (often confused with 'vision'). In other countries that's a normal expectation - new policies such as on childcare will have some birthing problems - but in germany politicians usually have waited for a solid plan before they announce big measures.

I think Alice Schwarzer's words seeded some doubt in me, that v.d. Leyen got a fair chance overall. Seems like she lost her ways in fighting conservative opposition all her career. Anyway, Schwarzer is a nasty person, with some rather ignorant positions, so whatever. I just don't want to jump to conclusions on v.d. Leyen, without really reading up on shit, no more.

> For many Germans she's the definition of what's wrong with German politics because she didn't get where she is out of her own abilities, but rather as a consequence of her family having had that kind of influence in Germany for generations

Lucky her, now we think of Scheuer instead. Her fuckups are pretty tame compared to that guy... and he's still not canceled.

https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10652-bahnmining_-_punktlichkeit...

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Scheuer

Quite sadly, the english wiki article is... well pretty misleading about this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Scheuer

PKW-Maut isn't even mentioned..

I'm also pro-EU,remainer,etc. The problem is that the EU is the political graveyard, because countries send the most absurd people there. Not all of them,of course,but a lot. EU works when things are going slow and because of the sheer economical scale and power, everybody takes it serious when it comes to negotiations. But the EC isn't a bunch of experts on rapid situations. It's exactly the same when a French civil servant complained that they are being outbid when buying masks, because the state can't pay upfront, while the Americans ( individuals) could,so essentially a 60 million people country ended up competing against a few individuals with cash. Same with vaccines: while the EK were trying to come up with something, Israelis already were calling around the globe to make sure they get it first.

thats true. At least in Germany, you are just sent to the EU Parlament if you re not performing well in the country level.

Except von der Leyen was sent in as head of the Comission, a position which is essentially the Prime Minister of the EU. The PM's or the head of the Comission's job is to get sh*t done, as opposed to bragging about it and passing the responsability and the blame onto others.

Sorry to say but BJ is way better in this regard. He has delivered Brexit and the UK is in a much better position regarding vaccinations.

BJ and DT.

Yes Legen is a bit like an EU prime minister, but she doesn't have the same prerogatives. The EU has the ultimate authority only on a narrow number of economic issues, but e.g. on borders and health it needs to get the agreement of 27 goverents to act.

The EU is a compromise machine designed to manage the expectations and needs of 27 countries, not a presidential system where a Trump or Putin can sign executive decisions changing laws with the stroke of a pen. So Johnson or Trump as heads of the commission would likely manage to do better publicity-wise but I doubt they could get much faster results.

That's incorrect. The EU is a presidential system where the head of the Commission (vDL) can and just did change laws at the stroke of a pen. She has far more power than Trump because Trump could be blocked by Congress and Congress can make its own laws to which Trump is subservient. The EU Commission is the ultimate source of all EU law, with the Parliament being not actually a parliament at all (it can't change the law!).

An example of the EU changing the law on a whim was the regulations just published on Friday that imposed a border on Northern Ireland, the thing they just spent the last 4 years claiming would be terrible and provoke terrorist violence which is why the UK would have to basically 'lose' NI as territory. It could happen without Ireland or the UK even being consulted exactly because the EU is constitutionally a dictatorship of the Commission.

Italy as well. When they want to get rid of somebody at national level and save everybody's face, they promote to some role in the EU. Somebody come back, others stay there for years or forever.

It's Romans' "promoveatur ut amoveatur", promove to remove.

The CDU is also the worst for trying to enforce their German politics through EU law.

I am pro-EU, but I think the authoritarian countries (Poland, Hungary) need to be kicked out or at least punished. The EU states are too diverse right now in terms of values and economy. Hard to effectively lead such a bunch.

I wish countries would send their best to the EU. We could get shit done. (tho, overall I am very happy with EU legislation)

The vaccine situation, being played by Pfizer, shows exactly that the EU needs to act more confident and show strength.

EU need those countries mainly because of cheap workforce, army and to create this buffer between Central Europe and Russia.

EU cannot afford to loose the 8th strongest army of Europe and have it potentially getting aligned with Russia. It would be a disaster for Germany, to have Poland as enemy right now and have them doing military exercises together with Russia some km from the Germany/Poland border. Yes, Poland has a strong aversion to Russia, but being kicked out from EU, would force them to search for new partners, and Poland, together with Belarus, would open a tunnel from Moscow to Berlin. Germany dont want it. Russia would do everything to have it.

Another point is that a lot of sectors in Germany depends heavily on Polish workforce, specially in the border region like Brandenburg, Saxony and Mecklenburg Vorpommern.

> The EU states are too diverse right now in terms of > values and economy. Hard to effectively lead such a bunch.

That´s exactly one of the main complains from Hungary and Poland, regarding migration. A diverse country in terms of values is hard to lead. So in that matters you are pretty well aligned with them.

> EU cannot afford to loose the 8th strongest army of Europe and have it potentially getting aligned with Russia.

I very much doubt Poland would align with Russia. They hate them since forever. Poland should be given the choice to play by the law and value human rights or see what nationalism is worth without the EU. They won't leave. They will follow. They have much, much more to lose.

> EU need those countries mainly because of cheap workforce

Who "needs" what? Exploiting cheap labor from Poland only works for Germany, because legal working standards and payment is allowing for this. German people would benefit too, if general exploitation was fought against.

If we tax industries according to their societal, environmental or climate damge, e.g. carbon tax, we can redefine our "dependencies". We don't need cheap farm workers, if we cut the meat industry; we would have much, much, much less demand in labor, land and energy, going for a mostly plant-based food production. Mass meat production is only viable because it's subsidized by the government and it's environmental/climate impact collectivized.

The industry needs cheap workforce. Capitalism needs a cheap workforce. Economic growth and exploitation of natural ressources needs a cheap workforce.

If we want to survive the shitshow ahead, a lot of things need to change. Compromising with populism and cultural degeneration is contra-productive.

> I very much doubt Poland would align with Russia. They hate them since forever.

Germany and France were eternal enemies too. Now we cannot imagine Europe without both countries. If we kick Poland out of EU, the anti-EU sentiment will grow and Russia will be the only available partner in the region. At the same time Poland will have a strategic card in their hand. So they will do what they have to do.

Look the numbers look like:

"Intra-EU trade accounts for 80% of Poland’s exports (Germany 28%, Czechia and France both 6%), while outside the EU 3% go to both Russia and the United States.

In terms of imports, 69% come from EU Member States (Germany 27%, the Netherlands 6% and Italy 5%), while outside the EU 8% come from China and 7% from Russia."

So if EU kicks Poland out, who are going to be the next partners?

> Who "needs" what? Exploiting cheap labor from Poland only works for Germany, because legal working standards and payment is allowing for this. German people would benefit too, if general exploitation was fought against.

That's just populism.

> The industry needs cheap workforce. Capitalism needs a cheap workforce. Economic growth and exploitation of natural ressources needs a cheap workforce. > If we want to survive the shitshow ahead, a lot of things need to change. Compromising with populism and cultural degeneration is contra-productive.

That's just populism too.

So IMO, you want to fight populism with populism and fight for diversity, killing the cultural diversity in Europe.

I am not advocating for "kicking poland out", but giving it a choice or rather impose penalties for it feasting on the imagery of EU as enemy and shit. Membership comes with rules Poland isn't following. Either get in line or get out.

I am saying it's in Poland's interest to play along.

Hungary on the other hand is probably fucked beyond at this point.

> So IMO, you want to fight populism with populism and fight for diversity, killing the cultural diversity in Europe.

You mean the cultural diversity of authoritarianism, workers exploitation and human rights violations? Yes, I would like to kill that.

> I am not advocating for "kicking poland out",

You literally wrote: "I am pro-EU, but I think the authoritarian countries (Poland, Hungary) need to be kicked out or at least punished."

> or at least punished

> You mean the cultural diversity of authoritarianism, workers exploitation and human rights violations? Yes, I would like to kill that.

Your populism is awful. I know, Virtue Signaling is the best way to earn karma @ Reddit. Not here on HN, though..

Germany is exploiting the polish workers. So I guess Germany should be "kicked out" from EU for that?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

kicking out Poland, means isolating Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and at the same time, giving a freeway from Moscow to Russia. It would be a bad move thinking from the geopolitics point of view.

I am sure Poland realizes how much it benefits from EU membership. Let those nationalist parties have their nationalism, or stop violating human rights. The EU could argue open and strong: Have it your way, or play for the collective. Don't let them use populist interpretations, confront them transparently.

What's Poland without the EU? They don't have the economy to even fade like the UK. They would lose everything.

We don't have to endure their shit, their nationalistic, misogynist and homophobic populism in the EU politics.

Sure we depend on them geopolitically, but so do they. They are afraid of Russia much more than the rest of the EU. And they are nothing without the EU economy.

Mind you, I am advocating for the enforcement of human rights and social progression, nothing more.

> What's Poland without the EU? They don't have the economy to even fade like the UK. They would lose everything.

That's the typical arrogance from a west germans. Poland was already a country before EU and I don't remember in the history an non-authoritarian Poland. So that's how they are. So is Turkey and so many other European countries or partners. To ask for a diverse Germany, but try to kick out countries that don't really buy the German vision, is at least contradictory.

> Mind you, I am advocating for the enforcement of human rights and social progression, nothing more.

No you are not not. You are just repeating the other spectrum of populism. You and Poland are just different sides of the same coin.

If you think e.g. the anti-LGBT situation, or women's bodily autonomy in Poland is "just another opinion", we really do not need to talk further indeed. As I said, it's about human rights and there is no room for debate.

Sure Turkey and Poland and so on were countries before. And they will be without the EU, no doubt. Being a country does not imply having strong, independent economies. Both Poland and Turkey play their geopolitical role against the EU. They wouldn't have to, if there was much else for them rely on, no? You think Poland would fare better than the UK? You think the EU would talk to Turkey, if Turkey wasn't conveniently dealing with those refugees? Have you talked to a person from Turkey recently? They aren't exactly happy with what they got.

And do you think that kicking Poland out of EU will make the life of the LGBT community and the abortion rights better there? The only way to help the communities there is to have the border open between both countries and offer assistance in Germany (as we do already, just not now, because of COVID-19). Sorry, your cancel culture won't fix any problem in the World.

lol, by authoritarian you just mean "not leftist".

The UK is far more authoritarian than anywhere in Eastern Europe, arresting thousands of people for speech crime every year, refusing to allow the registration of opposition political parties, engaging in massive surveillance of the population, illegally jailing political dissidents etc etc. Did you advocate kicking us out?

No, of course not, because it's done in the cause of liberal globalism (people are jailed for saying things that offend left wing victim groups, the people surveilled are "right wing extremists", the parties refused registration are "far right", the dissidents jailed are "right wing populists" etc) so people like you have no problem with it.

I mean you literally advocate "punishing" countries that fail to submit to liberal leftist ideology, and say the EU needs more "shows of strength", you're not "anti-authoritarian, you're just a left wing authoritarian.

But yes, go ahead and kick them out, they'll be lucky to be free of the EU's subversion of their national cultures.

> you're not "anti-authoritarian, you're just a left wing authoritarian.

Yes I was kind of avoiding this term, but you nailed it.

We even have an entire saying about it: "Hast du einen Opa, schick ihn nach Europa." ("If you have a grandpa [to get rid of], send him to Europe [i.e. Brussels/Strasbourg].")

The institutional design of the EU is unique in its setup as a supranational entity - it's neither an international organisation nor a state, it's something in between. Usually it mainly acts on 'market stuff' and the institutional structures are designed for careful compromise finding, especially to balance out any excess weight of the big countries. But since 2005 or so it has been pushed more and more in the geopolitical and criss-reaction realm where these careful but slow processes struggle. The UK gov can take an important spending decision on its own authority (or at most involving the commons and lords) but where it doesn't have the ultimate authority itself (e.g. some trade deals) the EU has to get agreement from the European parliament and 27 national governments.

I know people at the European Medecines Agency that were angry at Ursula von der Leyen in December because she was always making public announcements (about the beginning and speed of the vaccination campaign) with no regard for the reality of regulatory activities or manufacturing and logistics constraints.

> Even if the UK was somehow being duplicitous here, and had somehow undermined the EU vaccine program

But let us be clear that it isn’t, and they are not.

Do you know how many doses UK is getting over the same period? Does UK also missing 60% of their contract or they are prioritized?

AZ set up a separate supply chain in each major jurisdiction. As I understand it, the EU interfered in its member countries' contracts, delayed them 3 months, delaying the EU supply chain from starting.

Ridiculously, from what I can see, in the contract the EU specifically stated they could only supply a few early doses from the UK in 2020 (because after Jan 1 the UK is outside the EU and they are not permitted to use non-EU production) and have then been trying to make spurious claims they're supposed to divert UK doses nearly a month afterwards.

Sorry to say it looks like EU Commission incompetence layered on some more EU Commission incompetence.

The EU didn't interfere in any contracts. Some countries were moving ahead but the small ones were scared to be left out in the cold so pushed for it to be done by the EU instead of the big countries. Then once it was in the EU decision process some individual countries slower the agreement process with worries about price, ...

Either way Brussels would get the blame - as too expensive, buying the wrong ones, not managing to agree quick enough, etc. But it's not as if someone in the commission just said and twiddled thumbs, they were negotiating, then convincing countries to agree, negotiating again, ...

It's easy to point at 'the EU' but the Brussels institutions were asked to do it, rather than took this from someone. The countries were probably happy to have someone to blame later. What I would love to know is which country held things up in council - as the article says, some were doubting mRNA vaccines and others tried to go cheaper and that was the reason for the delay.

The UK actually ordered that vaccine way before the EU, the UK essentially paid for manufacturing to start.

EU didn't, and only ordered it after it was clear it would work. 3 months later than the UK.

So astrazeneca started manufacturing doses in the UK 3 months ago, but the manufacturing teething problems in the EU factory are 3 months behind.

Essentially the EU, at best, are trying to jump the queue, which is very frowned upon over here in roast beef. At worse they were too slow paying for their own vaccine, are shocked to find you can't magic it out of thin air and are now trying to steal it from the UK to save face.

Well... maybe not. What the EU suspects is that vaccine that was produced in the EU with EU money was shipped to the UK in December. I have read that even until last week shipments went from the EU to the UK.

If so, AZ and/or the UK government are actively cheating the EU. Is it true? I guess time will tell.

Good source for latest vaccine news: https://twitter.com/QuentinAries

From the reports we're seeing over here the claim is that until the Wrexham factory came online, we were producing the vaccine in the UK but shipping it to the Netherlands for fill and finish, and then it was shipped back. If that is the case then the EC is going to look a bit stupid. If it does turn out that AZ has been shipping vaccines fully produced in the EU to the UK then I can understand their anger more, although I think it's a bit daft to make a public fight out of it - to me it would make sense that early production would be routed to the UK as we approved the vaccine earlier, and we could get a head-start on vaccinating our most vulnerable population, and then when the EU approved it later we could have returned the favour and routed some of our production back that way. But I also understand that the UK hasn't exactly inspired...confidence in our generosity in recent years.

Some journo sent an email that wasn't answered and suddenly they've "used" a random amount of money?

This is Astrazeneca, with a turnover of $24 BILLION. £336 million is a couple of days turnover for them. The accusation doesn't even stand up to the slightest little bit of scrutiny or common sense.

You shouldn't rely on Twitter for "news".

The EU doesn't own everything in the EU, it's not the Soviet Union (much as people like you seem to want it to be).

They aren't "EU vaccines". Astra Zeneca can ship them wherever they want based on contractual and legal practices. Those are privately owned AstraZeneca facilities. The idea that you can separate out "EU money" within a private company is also ridiculous.

If the EU wants to start playing games then other countries and corporations will simply remove the EU from supply chains etc. Japan and South Korea for example trusted that normal contractual and legal practices would be followed when they ordered vaccines produced in the EU, and are now publicly stating their concern.

Do you think they'll ever trust the EU again if it tries to violate their contractual rights on the moronic grounds that "they were made in the EU therefore they belong to the EU"?

The UK Government haven't yet made any specific statement about the vaccine export ban yet, have they? The only statement has been about the Northern Island border.

> and the UK somehow being blamed for a contractual dispute between the EU and AstraZeneca

Agreed. The only "people" that seem to be blaming the UK Gov are the media.

> Even if the UK was somehow being duplicitous here,

The AZ-UK contract will say similar things to the EU contract, and AZ are upholding their part of the contract at the moment, delivering 'best reasonable efforts', and for all countries they've signed with. They're behind on deliveries for the UK as well. The UK signed commercial contracts with AZ, Pfizer and so on, as you would normally do.

One of the problems is that the EU contract (and others, presumably) just isn't worded specifically enough. VdL and the EU are choosing to read 'best reasonable efforts' to mean different things [0], when in contract law it has a very specific and well understood meaning. As a result, VdL does not want to respect the queue of nations that have ordered before the EU that have also signed similar contracts to which AZ has similar, if not identical, contractual obligations.

If this goes to the ECJ (?), AZ vs EU, it would be surprising, and worrying if the ECJ ruled in favour of the EU. Many companies would be reluctant to sign future contracts with the EU if they thought the EU would just ride roughshod over them.

I recall reading that the supply of lipids (I'm probably wrong, I can't find the link) for the vaccine come from the UK, so if that's true, I really hope for everyone's sake, it doesn't turn into a pathetic tit-for-tat blocking of exports.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-europe...

No way UK is to blame for this, just pure arrogance of narcissistic EU commission trowing a temper tantrum about how it can't possibly be even wrong after having grabbed all responsibility for delivering the vaccine because it was her moment to shine after the brexit, and then start pointing fingers at the first set back.

No one blamed UK. This blame thing is completely made up by UK media.

Not just UK media, German media as well. But maybe not to yhe same extent.

lol, the EU is publicly doing it and there are people in this thread doing it.

I am in the UK and while in the EU I thought we were part of the world's reasonable ethical block, but now from outside it is apparent how badly the EU bullies and intimidates other countries.

A significant part of the vaccines the UK has administered were produced in EU factories. Now that the EU tries to do the same as countries like the UK and the US do - not exporting - they are bullies? Right.

> A significant part of the vaccines the UK has administered were produced in EU factories

Yes, and those vaccines are, or were, only approved for use in the UK, the EU, only yesterday finally approved the AZ vaccine, 3 months after the UK. So who else are the pharma companies going to ship those vaccines to, when the shelf life is weeks or months?

There is a global supply chain at work here, from the substances for the vaccines, to the equipment, and even skilled labour used to produce them. Very little of that, if any, is subject to export bans.

The UK does not have an export ban on vaccines. The EU is free to sign contracts with any vaccine supplier in the UK. But history seems to be repeating itself again. The EU hasn't signed with Novavax, who have just passed trials. The UK signed 5 months ago, and it will be produced in NE England. [0]

0. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1390787/EU-vaccine-deal...

Approval doesn't matter when AZ has to build stock to meet deadlines. Basically they weren't building stock to fulfill UK orders, from EU based production.

It takes months to build stock, but they were flushing that stock to UK.

> Approval doesn't matter when AZ has to build stock to meet deadlines. Basically they weren't building stock to fulfill UK orders, from EU based production.

Vaccine delivery, like pretty much everything else, is just-in-time delivery. They haven't been building stocks. They've been manufacturing vaccines and shipping them straight out as they have signed contracts with many other countries other than the UK. Demand is outstripping supply.

The EU's argument, which is well documented in the press, is that they've promised about 300 million Euros to AZ to build up capacity, only a small amount of which they've paid AZ. It is also well documented that it takes time to get a vaccine manufacturing plant working at close to 100% yield, something even the UK plant hasn't achieved. It's simply the case that the EU should have agreed and paid sooner so that AZ could have invested that money in the EU plants sooner. All of this is covered in the 'best reasonable efforts' parts of the contract.

> It takes months to build stock, but they were flushing that stock to UK.

Evidence? As far as I can see in the press, the AZ doses in the UK are coming from the AZ manufacturing plants in the UK, and it is vdL / the EU that is demanding that AZ doses in the UK are diverted to the EU to make up the current shortfall in EU manufacturing.

>Vaccine delivery, like pretty much everything else, is just-in-time delivery. They haven't been building stocks. They've been manufacturing vaccines and shipping them straight out as they have signed contracts with many other countries other than the UK. Demand is outstripping supply.

Vaccine production started before any country gave any approval, it's well documented that it started in 5th JUNE 2020, so I don't quite get what you're saying. If it took Europe 4 more weeks to approve a vaccine all the stock produced until that point should have been flushed to countries who approved it before, even though the production started way before anyone approved - so they take advantage of stock build up, but Europe doesn't because?

>The EU's argument, which is well documented in the press, is that they've promised about 300 million Euros to AZ to build up capacity, only a small amount of which they've paid AZ. It is also well documented that it takes time to get a vaccine manufacturing plant working at close to 100% yield, something even the UK plant hasn't achieved. It's simply the case that the EU should have agreed and paid sooner so that AZ could have invested that money in the EU plants sooner. All of this is covered in the 'best reasonable efforts' parts of the contract.

Again, something doesn't add up - it's well documented that it was EUROPEAN factories in the Netherlands and Germany that produced the first batches of AZ vaccines for the UK. So even before UK has any production capacity they are already taking advantage of Europe capacity of production financed by EU.

Basically the UK took advantage of EU capacity, and EU didn't get anything out of their investment? And now that UK has some capacity, all of it will be for UK, and EU should keep investing to make vaccines for UK and the rest of the world, while AZ is failing to fulfill orders.

This is weird, no?

>Evidence? As far as I can see in the press, the AZ doses in the UK are coming from the AZ manufacturing plants in the UK, and it is vdL / the EU that is demanding that AZ doses in the UK are diverted to the EU to make up the current shortfall in EU manufacturing.

It's well documented in the media, quote:

"Ian McCubbin, the manufacturing lead for the UK's Vaccine Taskforce said that the “vast majority” of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine will be manufactured in the UK.

AstraZeneca also has some plants in Europe, with sites in Germany and the Netherlands producing the jab - these were the first to be rolled out in the UK."

Source: https://www.business-live.co.uk/manufacturing/uk-factories-m...

I'm saying demand is outstripping supply and there aren't (huge) stockpiles of vaccines. The UK AZ plant is yet running at 100% yield according to the AZ chairman, and the EU plants are further behind. If there were 100% supply, the UK would be even further ahead in its doses-administered.

> Basically the UK took advantage of EU capacity

It's not the UK that took advantage, if the vaccines originated in an EU plant, it's that AZ chose to supply doses to the UK from the EU plant to meet its contractual 'best efforts' obligation, not the UK.

That's my point from earlier that the media are trying to draw the UK into this as some kind of post-Brexit spat with the EU, and that the UK gov. have rightly been quiet on the whole thing so far. That's also, partly, the EU's view on it as well, which is one of the reasons I suppose why they 'raided' the plants in the EU.

The two different vaccines the UK has administered had different contractual and manufacturing arrangements - the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine has separate manufacturing facilities for the UK and the EU, with each being contractually tied to the supply of vaccines for that area, whereas the Pfizer/BioNTech one both contracted for supply for the same manufacturing facility. As I understand it, the UK wanted at least one locally manufactured vaccine as a precaution in case Trump went and banned exports (and I suspect the EU also wanted theirs manufactured locally for the usual reasons).

I think this is all quite played up in the media. Pressure is on and each time a single EU government - here Macron - says something the UK make it out as the evil EU.

> From what I've gathered (unfortunately mostly on Reddit, before this article), Ursula von der Leyen wasn't exactly fondly thought of in Germany before this and somehow keeps managing to fail upwards. Is that accurate?

That's how EU politics work. It's a storage area for unpopular politicians that did not do well at the national level, and a recycling center for unpopular legislation that was not approved in national legislatures. An example of the latter, also from Germany, is the copyright directive, which recycles proposals that German publishers could not get passed in their Bundestag.

From what my German friends told me, that was exactly the case. And her transition to Brussels was a move to save her and CDU's face.

It should be noted that von der Leyen got this job not because she was recommend by anyone in Germany. The actuall suggestion supposedly came from Macron. In the vote for her among governments. Germany was the only one to not vote for her, due to an intervention by the social democratic party that is a member of the current german government.

France and Germany wanted both to head the European Central Bank and the European Commission, with both favoring the ECB. France got the ECB position in the end, most likely as part of a deal.

Nobody actually knows how she got the job. The person who runs the EU, the most powerful organisation in Europe, is appointed via a secret process decided in meetings with no public agenda and no published minutes.

The closest I've ever seen to an explanation was one well known senior MEP's claim that "the next head of the EU must be a woman". Same thing as Kamala Harris. von der Leyen in turn then insisted that 50% of the Commissioners be women. Constitutionally, the head of the commission does not get to pick the commissioners, the countries do, but if there's one thing I've learned about the EU over the years it's that it's a big fan of law as long as the law is convenient for its own goals. Given it writes those laws that's usually pretty easy, but the moment the rules go against what it wants politically they are very suddenly ignored, often to a breathtaking scale.

Observe how von der Leyen blatantly lied about the contents of the redacted contract to the whole world. She was only caught because the Commission suck at PDF. It's hard to imagine it's the first time she has boldly lied like that.

Your view of von der Leyen is pretty much correct. The problem is, so, the Spiegel has an axe to grind with her. Various reasons, she being from the CDU, being former Defense Minister, working with defense companies and the Big 5 consultancies. The defence company and defense ministry thing goes back the 60. Then defense minister Strauss, also head of the Bavarian CDU sister party CSU, illegally raided the Spiegel offices. And was the driving force behind EADS / Airbus as well. Ever since, the Spiegel is driving an agenda in that direction. Sometimes they loose themselves doing so. Their whole reporting of the Covid vaccine story is just another example where they totally miss the main issue.

Absolutely, the appeals to “fairness” have been particularly unedifying to hear whilst there are vast swathes of the world unable to access anything like the quantity of vaccine the EU has a hold on.

> Germany before this and somehow keeps managing to fail upwards. Is that accurate?

Yes, I'm strongly irritated that she still has *any* job in politics after the failures she caused and the fact that a lot of it smelled quite a bit of a dangerous mix of incompetence and corruption....

But then I also have not looked too much into here (or politics in general) so I might be wrong.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com