EU rebuffs UK calls to ship AstraZeneca Covid vaccines from Europe
reuters.com
reuters.com
https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1372897635577761803
In summary: UK (and US) screwed EU. Now EU is screwing UK back.
Essentially whether the UK contract has been fulfilled is pretty black and white where the EU one is significantly less so.
See below:
> "The level of specificity is partially due to the legal systems they're based on. The U.K. contract is written in English law, which will judge whether both parties delivered the goods based on the exact wording of the contract. The EU contract is written in Belgian law, which focuses on whether both parties tried their best to deliver the goods and acted in good faith.
It's these extra details that give the U.K. more leverage to ensure its contract is delivered effectively. While both contracts say all parties will make their “best reasonable effort” to deliver the vaccine, the U.K. government is clearer in asserting its oversight of the agreement.
This core difference, according to a lawyer familiar with the development of the U.K. text, can be chalked up to the fact that the contract sealed with London was written by people with significant experience of purchasing agreements, specifically drug-buying deals. The European Commission’s contract, by contrast, shows a lack of commercial common sense, in the lawyer’s view.
The starkest example of this difference is a clause in the U.K. contract stating that if any party tries to force or persuade AstraZeneca or its subcontractors to do anything that could hold up the supply of the vaccine doses, the government may terminate the deal and invoke what appear to be punishment clauses — although these are largely redacted. "[1]
https://www.politico.eu/article/the-key-differences-between-...
Screwing someone in writing is still screwing them. By your same logic, the EU hasn't screwed anyone, since it's within legal powers to do what it's doing - i.e. it's in the contract of being in the EU.
IANAL though.
Does that sound like "screwing" anyone?
The EU has handled the pandemic badly overall, and especially the vaccine. They are making noise as a way to distract and deflect and apparently their public opinion is buying it.
They are also complaining about supply of AZ vaccine while, at the same time, trying hard to destroy that vaccine's reputation (so that some people don't want it). This is incomprehensible.
Just being Pro-EU doesn't mean the reporting on this vaccine-drama is inaccurate. It means we probably need to be careful of what they are saying, but doesn't automatically mean it's wrong.
https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1351129930264948748
1 tweet is not evidence of bias in itself, though, if you've been following along since Brexit it's pretty obvious. I invite you to spent 10 minutes looking through his twitter feed and judge for yourself.
Assuming that is true, which it isn't, on what basis did the EU assume good behaviour?
Also, it is not illegal for the EU to be banning exports of this vaccine product. Plus, where did the tax subsidies come from? In this case it is from an EU member state. This is how pharmaceutical companies work; they plant themselves where the subsides are.
The biggest mistake that the EU made was that they trusted free market forces too much.
Either way, this is a good read, from the Global Commission of Post-Pandemic Policy: Why States Should Invest in Vaccine Capacity: https://globalcommissionforpostpandemicpolicy.org/states-and...
It talks about the EU vaccine situation well, too.
Two wrongs do not a right make.
The UK screwed nobody, they just wrote a good contract independent of EU.
If the UK knew there were not going to be able to manufacture there, they would have made it elsewhere.
Nationalizing exports is a massive problem, and it may very well be illegal.
Nobody screwed the EU or Canada, they just failed to take appropriate action.
I don't see how the UK insisting on a British partner for Oxford is 'screwing' the EU, given the fact we were leaving the EU around this time and Trump was not known for his globalist worldview at the time.
"What mistakes did EU make? To me it seems obvious.
EU took decisions based on an assumption of a free market and good faith from its partners. They didn’t think forcing an EU partner on BioNTech was essential, or EU plants should be for Europeans 1st.
That now appears naive.
EU assumed good behavior. US & UK manoeuvred to benefit themselves."
The first duty of a nation is to its people.
The moment that politicians forget that is the moment they find themselves in predicaments like this.
That's incompatible.
I could see them making a good faith assumption. Free market assumption is basically, everyone is out to earn most money they can.
The list of bad decisions goes on and on. Face masks, open borders, vaccine development, suspension of AZ vaccine, etc. This is bad management and probably dangerous political games.
Now, the UK did not do much better but at least they did manage to develop a vaccine (which is sold at cost) and to understand that vaccination had to happen early and as fast as possible and they went all in (800k+ injections just yesterday).
When I say "the EU" it means as much the EU as an institution as it means most member states individually.
This has been especially difficult for us in Canada where our dependant relationship with the US ("sleeping with an elephant") has screwed us not just on vaccine supply but on other geopolitical issues (China imprisoning our citizens as proxy conflict with the US, trade conflict over steel and aluminum and dairy, etc.).
If you traveled back 15-20 years and told people at the time that there would be a situation where Canada would be poor in vaccine supply while the US was drowning in it, people would be a bit shocked. During the Clinton/Chretien era this kind of lack of cooperation would be unheard of, continental integration was the agenda of the day.
Some of this is now alleviating with Biden at the helm, but it's still not a good situation. We just "borrowed" 1.5M doses of AstraZeneca from the US that they weren't using, but that's really a drop in the bucket.
So yeah, it's not just EU vs UK, it's a whole situation, the breakdown of the neo-liberal concensus. It's not clear what replaces it.
Was that retaliatory for Canada imprisoning a Chinese citizen in the name of US sanctions against Iran? I am curious which came first since I haven't followed it closely.(no justifying, just wondering why this is the example you brought up)
How is that "screwing" the EU?
In the meantime the EU has worked hard to try to destroy AZ vaccine's reputation...
If France's vaccine had worked and AZ failed, the tables would have been turned. This also completely ignores that the Oxford/AZ vaccine is what is driving vaccinations around the world right now for ~$3 a pop.
Somehow UK is both the devil and an angel in this scenario.
Did US export vaccine doses to its neighbours or anyone else?
Did UK export vaccine doses to the EU?
I'm not commenting on Dave as I've no idea what he said/wrote, I'm replying to the above as it's a commonly held point that the EU shipped does to the UK and the UK has not reciprocated. And this is very much not true.
The EU does not make any vaccine, and so by definition has not shipped any doses to the UK.
A private company (AZ) has contracts that include manufacturing in the EU and shipping into the UK.
This has nothing to do with the EU as an entity at all; it is simple private trade. If the EU couldn't come up with an enforcable private contract going the other way, that's on them. And even if AZ are somehow in the wrong on the EU contract, it's still private contracts between them and the EU and has nothing to do with the UK government, so why should it be 'obliged' to send any back? After all, the UK (as an entity) also doesn't produce vaccines and so has none to send in any event.
Over the last decades many EU nations had referendums, and it was clear the majority of the people in many countries are agains further expansion of EU power. Yet the EU bureaucrats didn't listen and kept pushing as a result even more people feel alineated with the EU project, the Brexit is in direct line of these developments. And even now they still keep pushing.
No they didn't, the UK drew the red lines not the EU. The UK punished themselves. They could have gotten a Switzerland deal, a Norway deal, a Turkey deal, etc they decided they didn't like those deals.
This was not negotiated as a friendly trade deal as done with Canada, US, Swiss etc. It was clear they were doing something the EU doesn't want to make an example off. Tensions from both sides.
Edit: Aha, I understand know you mean they could have gotten the same deals as them. If you have sources for this, please share, but as far as I know this is not true. Take for instance this excerpt from the Financial Times:
"Slides presented to EU member states this week by the European Commission suggest it is looking for something far more sophisticated and hard-hitting for Britain. If Brussels has its way, the system will govern not just the two sides’ future trade relationship but several other partnerships in areas such as security and judicial co-operation, joint research, and aviation.
One of the key motivations for the EU is to avoid replicating the unruly jumble of agreements that govern its deep relations with Switzerland — whose population in 1992 rejected a proposal to join the European Economic Area. The two sides have subsequently built their relationship up over time, resulting in no fewer than 100 agreements governing their relations. "
Switzerland is part of the Schengen area and we regularly renegotiate (and vote on) new agreements.
Norway is also part of the Schengen area, but also part of the EEA (European Economic Area).
Turkey is part of the European Custom Union.
The UK decided to go its own way instead.
This interactive SVG gives a good overview: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Supranat....
CGP Grey did a great video in 2019, though it's of course a bit outdated now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agZ0xISi40E.
No, Canada and the US are literally an ocean away. The UK is so close you can swim there. The EU made it clear that a it makes no sense to have the same deal as a partner that is on the other side of the world than it does to have with a partner that is so close and have other interests and conflicts to discuss.
All the deals I used as examples are better deals than the Canada and US deals they were all offered and rejected by the UK.
The absence of a Swiss option was very well-known, even before the referendum, to anyone who paid any attention to actual EU policies. They see Switzerland as a mistake, ever since the country tried to walk back on its commitment to the four freedoms, and will absolutely not repeat that mistake ever again.
Hopefully they follow up with Pfizer and Janssen until such time that at least 50% of the EU is vaccinated.
And the fact before the referendum for Brexit the EU gave the UK better terms than they already had when they already had the best deal in the EU and you're ashamed of this?`
The whole vaccine thing seems to be the UK has their risk groups covered the EU hasn't. Seems one needs the vaccine more than the other in terms of saving lives. But honestly, it all really breaks down to the fact the UK has been pissing all over the EU for years. This is what happens when you have no politcal capital in a politcal arena.
Or in other words: The excuse for being aggressivly nationalistic towards other nations, without the need to call it nationalism.
This behaviour is particulary present across European high-educated middle- and upper-class circles and in general in Germany. In short: in areas of a society which have trouble celebrating their roots, because it grounds them. Next to their lower class neighbours or distant un-urban relatives.
> While UK officials and media repeatedly demonized the EU for the past ~5 years.
From following the three elections regarding Brexit (the Referendum, the EU parliamentary vote and the British Election in 2019): to claim that a majority of the British media, politicians and business elites sturred the anti-EU sentiment is utter, utter nonsense.
The vast majority of domestic political parties favours the EU soley for the fact, that it gives them twice the amount of taxpayer payed positions they could shuffle their members into. And so did most of the British parties.
Wait until you learn that I'm Swiss, generally proud of my country and its history and people, do not have a European citizenship, have no form of high-education (my highest formal certificate is from an apprenticeship, I'm self-taught and built my software engineer career myself by learning directly on the job), and come from a single-parent family categorized as "lower class" by wealth statistics.
Other than attacking an imaginary "elite" persona I'm supposed to embody, do you have some actual points to discuss regarding feeling "disturbed" and "ashamed" by the EU?
Plus, obviously, the EU wouldn't be breaking any contracts. It's AstraZeneca's contract with the UK that would be broken, to which the EU is not a party.
The EU is also just levelling the playing field here: it was unique among the major vaccine-producing countries in not establishing strict export controls from the beginning, as the UK did, and the US did using the Defense Production Act (or whatever it's called).
Until now, absolutely no vaccines have left either the US or the UK, while about half of the EU production has been exported. That's precisely because the EU started this particular game of iterative prisoner's dilemma with the assumption of cooperation. That trust in was betrayed in the first round, and now we're seeing the reaction.
Considering the supply chains cross many borders, there is a good chance this will now escalate further, and total production capacity may well be harmed as a result, which is exactly why cooperation was the first choice. It may have been naive in a practical sense to assume that Johnson and, at the time, Trump would be capable of thinking two steps ahead. But getting burned on an assumption of good faith isn't exactly the worst thing in the world.
Plus, once the US, UK, and Israel are done, and with more capacity coming on-line, the spigot will turn to the EU and the difference may end up being far smaller than one might think from just extrapolating current data.
US: 0
UK: 0
EU: 41.1 million doses
The EU should never have allowed Biontech and other European vaccine companies to partner with US companies and thus fall under the American export bans.
Unfortunately the EU has acted in a naive manner and now have to mop up a mess.
In the meantime Germany was happy to let BioNTech's breakthrough vaccine go to Pfizer (American)...
Do you think a EU partner would have just skipped the US market?
So we are left with the question, would an EU partner ignore the US market? Of course not.
UK: 0
EU: 0
Neither the UK nor the EU make vaccines.
Why can't people grasp this?
Each political entity has a contract with private companies. Neither political entity has any obligation to each other when it comes to providing doses as neither makes vaccines and so neither is in a position to export them.
If the EU bans vaccine exports they are restraining private trade between AZ and the UK. If they don't block exports, well that's just normal business and imposes no obligations whatsoever on a third party such as the UK.
When has Russia, or China, or the US ever tried to have an even playing field?
> “The European Commission will know that the rest of the world is looking at the Commission, about how it conducts itself on this, and if contracts get broken, and undertakings, that is a very damaging thing to happen for a trading bloc that prides itself on the rules of law,” Defence Minister Ben Wallace said
Can't believe such bullshit in the face of a humanitarian crisis. Sales are cancelled all the time. It would only be reciprocal, and in line with US policy. More importantly, the UK is already thoroughly vaccinated, and the risk is very low throughout the summer. For once, the UK has time.
He's right in that export restrictions on vaccines are wrong, but it's because much of the rest of the world is even worse off than the EU, not because this tool has a piece of paper.
https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/covid-19-vaccine-astrazene...
It's up to each individual nation to decide if they pause/resume.