EU has triggered article 16 over controls on vaccine exports

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Breaking news on sky
news.sky.com/story/covid-19-eu-introduces-controls-on-vaccine-exports-to-northern-ireland-12202656

It's reality though.

@HelloThereMeHearties
Nobody was screaming when the UK sold the fishing areas to other countries. Everyone was blaming the EU

Now post Brexit- when the fishermen are told they cannot fish in UK waters, that’s also the EU fault

Now what I am not saying is that EU is all great and UK isn’t. I’m saying it’s a complex issue, and just saying “I bloody knew it- that EU” is frankly mental.
Anyone who has worked in a large corporation can appreciate how departmentalised things can become.

I was trying to make a point that the border, which no one cared about on the UK side until now. And had it been the other way around people would glee at this article being evoked

There is no big green button for starting up a plant and getting a guaranteed amount of product out at the end.

especially if you take so long about signing the contract as the EU did.
And tried to get it cheaper

The EU also bragged about driving down the price per dose below that which the U.K. amd US are paying . As price equals cost in this scenario they have effectively insisted on a lower cost base with less room for error when the supply chain fails . They have gambled and lost, it happens in these situations , but they need to take it on the chin and accept that they will get their vaccine but later than they hoped.

It's not az people are blaming, they are blaming the people who seized control and said let us deal with this... Then they spent months haggling over a few euros in price whilst Rome burned.

Had the EU signed their contract three months earlier, they'd be three months ahead. Like we are. We had glitches, and they took time to sort out.

But the EU wanted to get the price down, and it didn't want to indemnify AZ. So it all took much longer.

And now they're flailing around trying to find others to blame.

Pease but it's the citizens who are having to take this on the chest!

Ursula vd is coming under serious criticism.

I think we can all understand why the EU are annoyed, whilst simultaneously being aghast at their behaviour.

All this stuff about AZ ‘ignoring contract law’ and acting unlawfully etc is nonsense I’m afraid. Contract law depends on what the contract says - not what some random person thinks it ought to have said! If you want someone to be 100 per cent obliged to deliver something to you at a specified time then that’s exactly what you write in to your contract - an absolute obligation, no ifs or buts. The EU didn’t write that in, because it would have been unreasonable to do so and AZ wouldn’t have accepted it. Instead they asked for a much lower standard of ‘ best reasonable efforts’ to produce a specified amount in a certain timeframe. Whether AZ have failed to use ‘best reasonable efforts’ will be hard to demonstrate. The EU would have to show that a similar pharmaceutical company in similar circumstances would have acted differently. So at this stage - unless and until tested in court - there is no way of telling if AZ is in breach of contract - the EU wil maintain they are; AZ will say they are not and that they’re doing their best etc etc.

I don't think the UK can take any moral highground. The EU has a million times more integrity than our government and always will

@Aloethere

Too right EU citizens should be pissed.

But this is a British-dominated forum so when its posters feel the UK is being treated unfairly or being blamed for the Commission's mistakes, then, well, we'll get defensive especially after four plus years of ridicule and shit in terms of Brexit and the pandemic.

Natch.

Nobody seems to be addressing the point of why the EU wanted to invoke Article 16.

Did they think that AZ would smuggle vaccines over the border, or something?

@Goldieloxx

I don't think the UK can take any moral highground. The EU has a million times more integrity than our government and always will

Haha. Really.

What evidence do you have to back up your statement?

I don't think the UK can take any moral highground. The EU has a million times more integrity than our government and always will

wow, that's one hell of a statement

Would you care to comment on how Germany got away with breaking the rules and ordering extra vaccines? Because I'd really like to know why the Commission doesn't find that a problem

[quote Peaseblossom22]@DasPepe AZ are not producing widgets this is a complex product involving many stages and critically involving unpredictable bio cultures. Sometimes the yield from the culture can vary , this is particularly true in new and untested manufacturing plants. They are supplying this vaccine at cost under a no profit clause agreed with Oxford University.

They are not ‘pulling a fast one’ they are trying to supply a brand new vaccine during a global pandemic which involves establishing new supply chains and creating new production lines and they are doing this for no profit . Frankly I am not surprised they are cheesed off with the EU attitude.[/quote]
@Aloethere please read this rather than just assume AZ are acting in bad faith, you really think it’s easy to set up supply of a brand new vaccine? There’s no Amazon prime solution for this. There will be issues and the EU should have been straight with it’s citizens from the get go and supported AZ rather than publicly bashing them because it’s achieved literally nothing.

[quote DamnUserName21]@Aloethere

Too right EU citizens should be pissed.

But this is a British-dominated forum so when its posters feel the UK is being treated unfairly or being blamed for the Commission's mistakes, then, well, we'll get defensive especially after four plus years of ridicule and shit in terms of Brexit and the pandemic.[/quote]
Well yes, it is clear from the complete over reactions here that lots of people on this thread feel very defensive and are latching onto this to try and make themselves feel better about brexit. I just wish more people would have the self-awareness to admit it instead of dressing it up as concern for a country(NI in case anyone has already forgotten it's existance again) that they up until this moment in time have never given a shit about.

at the EU having integrity.

@Goldieloxx

I don't think the UK can take any moral highground. The EU has a million times more integrity than our government and always will

Absolutely fucking roaring with laughter here 🤣

Countess?

Hoisted by their own petard.

Is that what's frustrating them?

@Aloethere
It wasn't so much folks were worried about NI-after all, NI would be well supplied in terms of the vaccine by London, without a doubt. It was more concern that such an act would void the protocol, the Brexit treaty in full and would escalate from there.

I think dear guy V and junker are screeching into an abyss somewhere in the bowels of their shiny new building...

[quote DamnUserName21]@Aloethere
It wasn't so much folks were worried about NI-after all, NI would be well supplied in terms of the vaccine by London, without a doubt. It was more concern that such an act would void the protocol, the Brexit treaty in full and would escalate from there.[/quote]
Ah that explains it then, no one actually cares about NI and the Good Friday agreement. Sounds about right

Remainer here, although never a vitriolic one as I took a while to decide at the time and have been quite vocal about my disgust at the way many Leavers have been treated (assumed to be racist bigots by people who have known them years, know them not to be, but can't separate the person they know from their vote). But whatever...

I don't know how I'd vote tomorrow. Yesterday I would have said Remain without question, but this has really stopped me in my tracks. For me, it's shocking behaviour (reversal or not) because the one thing that we can all agree on is the bureaucracy that exists within the EU Parliament, so I keep thinking about how many people must have given the 'nod' for it to have got to the point it did. All those years of the GF Agreement, all those debates post the vote about the border, all disregarded as this 'idea' was presented higher and higher up the chain until it got to Ursula, and then with a quick signature, they were ready to throw it all away.

Imagine if we hadn't kicked off. They would have all been so pleased with themselves and not remotely losing sleep about the damage done to such a fragile and delicate issue.

I am honestly shocked that they were prepared to do something so reprehensible. mistake, my arse