Why should the UK vaccine supply be diverted to Europe?

[lovelemoncurd]

They ordered 3 months later than the UK. They have themselves less time to sort glitches. They have been slow to the table and now they wish to punish to UK for being efficient.

I was a remain voter. I'm starting to change my mind!

my worry, why would in the future any large pharmaceutical firm do not for profit again when it gets this amount of shit. The language has not been helpful from the EU, I cannot believe any of the firms would have guaranteed quantity delivery dates in their contracts for new drugs. It will be interesting if the EU does block vaccines that other countries have procured and the companies want exported then proceeds to use them.

End of the day people are rioting in a number of EU countries coupled with slow vaccination they are looking for any excuse right now to point finger the other way.

They weren't so bothered a few months ago, but the rioting is becoming an issue for those countries

Oh, cross post with several others.

Atdonewithitall, because you're not allowed just publish a confidential contract, they are asking AZ for permission (and claiming his interview breached that confidentiality).

And I haven't seen anyone saying it is the UK's fault so I'm not sure why so many posters are trying to make it into an EU UK thing.

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@usuallydoormant either way its not the uk's fault in anyway.
But why don't eu publish the contract surely they have a copy of their own contract [/quote]
But surely it doesn’t matter what the EU contract says? If AZ contracted with the UK that the vaccines produced in the UK would go to the UK first, AZ can’t them contract with the EU that they can use the UK manufacturing capacity.

The EU has absolutely no right to sight of the UK contract and if there is a contract confidentiality clause, AZ can’t disclose it to them.

It would be far better, instead of threatening and wasting energy on court cases / arguments, they accept manufacturing capacity isn’t going to be what it should for a couple of months. Exactly as we had to do in the early days and indeed now, when supply lines are considered “lumpy”

I think the vaccines should go to those who need it most so less people die.

I don't care if it's some randomer in London, Cornwall, Germany, the Yemen or wherever. I want as few people to die from covid as possible without bringing politics into it.

@Boulshired agreed. Hardly a great advert for “not for profit” vaccine development is it?!

@Crazycatlady83 I'm talking about the EU contract, not the UK one. My understanding is they are asking for permission to publish the EU AZ one. There's a Twitter link floating around that people seem to think is the contract but it is an example of what they think it probably is.

It’s fascinating to see so many posters opining so confidently about the terms of the APA between the EU and AZ, which presumably they haven’t read.

We don’t know what AZ committed to the U.K., nor what their commitments to the U.K. are.

If they have committed to best endeavours to supply the EU doses (which it sounds like they have, according to media interviews by both sides), the EU may be right in saying that AZ cannot give the U.K. priority. A ‘best endeavours’ clause is very onerous - it’s hard to prove that your endeavours are the best. Merely having overcommitted yourself by selling more stock than you can produce, would not, at common law, be enough to exonerate you from contractual liability under a BE clause.

Of course I’ve not seen the APA either, I don’t know what the language is, and also don’t know what the governing law is. But on the limited knowledge that one can derive from the news, it is not true that the EU is being prissy or is in bad faith about this.

If the shoe was on the other foot, we would be up in arms if Pfizer was reneging on its UK committed doses to give the EU preferential treatment.

@Crazycatlady83 I get it now the eu want to see the uk's/ az contract , I thought people meant the contract the eu has signed and couldn't understand why they don't publish it themselves.
The ceo explanation made sense and would be surprised if he has put his neck on the line to lie about a contract .
We also had issues at the beginning with supply of both

@LondonJax

Well by the 'it was made here so we get first dibs' method, we shouldn't have the Pfizer vaccination as that's manufactured in Belgium!

The issue seems to be that, when we approved the AZ vaccination, the UK based manufacturing area wasn't up to speed so 4 million vaccines were taken from the EU based factories as the contract with the UK was up and running. Now, of course, the EU is close to approval they want to know where the doses that should be in the factory are and want the short fall made up.

There was a man on the radio earlier in the week who explained that the UK contract has a stipulation about how many vials are produced for the UK each week/month or whatever. The EU contract just says they want x number of vials but with no stipulation about how many are sent. So, if AZ had not 'diverted' unused vaccines from a factory in a country that couldn't actually use the vaccine at the time (because it wasn't approved), they'd have fallen foul of contract law by now providing the UK with the stipulated amount.

Basically the EU contracts teams didn't do their job properly.

Essentially AZ wouldn't commit to a date for the EU order because they were already heavily committed with the UK order arranged three months beforehand.

@Yellownotblue because we have read what the ceo stated so we have gone by that.
Eu have not approached this well with threats either have they?
Why don't they publish there contract with Az as thats the one in discussion here ,

Those who are interested in the EU contract can search for "Curevac Advance Purchase Agreement - European Commission - Europa EU", you can read the PDF online. You might expect the terms to be similar.

@donewithitalltodayandxmas because the APA has a standard confidentiality clause in it so they can’t publish it without AZ’s consent

End of the day people are rioting in a number of EU countries coupled with slow vaccination they are looking for any excuse right now to point finger the other way

Exactly

A PP mentioned that this is a global threat and that nationalism's unhelpful, but rightly or wrongly nationalism's what we've got
As said, so much for the manic superstate project

@Yellownotblue we had these supplies issues as well at the beginning , and they are not saying they can't supply what is ordered , just not by dates wanted so will depend if contract has dates and timescales as well.
I hope there published and we can then all see who is at fault.
But it isn't the uk's fault thats for sure.

I haven't seen anyone saying it is the UK's fault

Apart from the EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides who said the UK would be responsible for the deaths of EU citizens... And the German MEP who said the UK is at fault and will 'face consequences'... And an unnamed German politician who tried to start a smear campaign about the Oxford vaccine by briefing journalists that it is only 8% effective in over 65s....and Ursula von der Leyen herself threatening to stop supplies of Pfizer to the UK and berating the UK for not diverting our supplies to the EU, while sneerily implying that we don't understand contracts....

@Wildswim yes exactly , I can't see how we can be responsible for a contract between a company and the eu , just because half owned british company. Isn't the az also being made in other countries ?

[quote usuallydormant]@Crazycatlady83 I'm talking about the EU contract, not the UK one. My understanding is they are asking for permission to publish the EU AZ one. There's a Twitter link floating around that people seem to think is the contract but it is an example of what they think it probably is.[/quote]
Sorry I appreciate that but what I’m trying to get at (probably not very well) is actually it doesn’t matter. What matters is what AZ contracted with the UK. If they already sold 100 million vaccine doses to the Uk to be produced in the UK, they can’t then contract the same with the EU. I doubt they would have made the mistake to do so. They can say after those 100 million doses, you can have the Uk capacity. Indeed Bojo has said this himself.

I doubt we will ever get to the bottom of it without lengthy and expensive court cases (which we absolutely don’t need in the middle of a pandemic) and the UK giving permission for their contract to be disclosed (and why would they?!)

So we have to take all the info we have been given at face value - the rest is just guesswork and speculation!!

Well it is perfectly possible that the U.K. is engaging in tortious interference by getting AZ to breach the terms of their EU APA. In which case yes, there would be legal liability for the U.K.

I’m not saying that it’s the case, just that it is a possibility.

@Mrex I would never expect terms to be similar , any clause could be put in by either side.
I always read by updated work contract despite little being changed , just incase.
We could only go by the actual contracts but az don't have to publicise I guess in less it goes to court

In terms of vaccinating the world - you always put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others. We can’t work to produce vaccines and boosters, or donate money to pay for them, if our economy goes down the toilet. We need to vaccinate our own country and get the economy moving so we can support other countries.

Do you not think those other countries would quite like to get their own economies going again, as well as not having their elderly and vulnerable die?

@Yellownotblue your doing what you accused others of, surmising without having proof or seen contract

you always put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others.

Even if you don't really need oxygen and the person next to you is gasping for it?

@donewithitalltodayandxmas The EU cannot publish the contract because the contract itself contains a confidentiality clause - AZ have to agree to lift that confidentiality.

I was wondering... is this attitude from the EU going to mean that companies in the future are more wary of opening production facilities in the EU? If they are threatening to block the export of goods, irrespective of the contract between the producer and the customer, what is the incentive to have a factory inside the bloc?