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

So why does eu want to see confidentiality contract between az and UK surely we made it clear how much we ordered.

I wonder whether the EU is hoping that the UK-AZ contract is the same as the EU-AZ one and can then argue that it should be treated the same, especially if it includes that 'best endeavours' clause. I can't see either side publishing. This is not the UK's fight.

Of course the UK hasn't forgotten that NI exists - it nearly scuppered the trade deal.

Do people still post on the Brexit threads?? That puts me in mind of the Japanese soldier who came out of the jungle not realising that WW2 had ended a few years earlier.

Do we know which EU countries knew about the intention to trigger article 16 (obviously not the RoI)? Aren't the others going to be pissed off about not being consulted?

Do people still post on the Brexit threads?? That puts me in mind of the Japanese soldier who came out of the jungle not realising that WW2 had ended a few years earlier

Yes there are still posters on the Brexit threads but they are echo chambers - dissenters are discouraged.

Years of ridicule and shit in terms of Brexit and the pandemic?

Look - this is exactly the point. The UK media has often quoted that UK is being ridiculed in the German media. (And others) And yes there have been SOME articles. But for most of the time, especially in the last 2/3 years, Brexit didn’t even make the first 10 pages of news.

So basically this “ridicule” has been made up by the British media. They’ve ridiculed the government more than anyone else in fact.

So it’s kind of getting defensive and aggressive but based on media frenzy.
You look at US and think, how can these idiots fall for all this crap? And yet here we are. .

As other have said: we can be critical of AZ, critical of EU invoking/revoking the article, but comments like “EU is showing it’s true colours”
It’s not one entity!
It’s a union (which includes countries like Poland - about to impose a full on abortion ban. Plenty of crazy in the union)

@PicsInRed

No need for nationalistic ugly rhetoric in the meantime.

The EU quite literally were the ones who did that will their threats of asset seizures, a trade war, and a hard border in NI/ROI.

And UK government initially drafting sections of its Internal Market Bill that would have violated the deal regulating its withdrawal from the EU was all fine and dandy?

However, my point was my dislike of individuals as exhibited on this thread using ugly nationalistic rhetoric. Govts and institutions will have occasional power plays, irresponsible of citizens to stoke things up further. Ugly path to go down.

i thought Germany was producing their own vaccine.

All this regret by remainers, does it matter, didn't we all vote for what we thought was right at the time? I voted leave, had some appalling abuse on here but didn't really discuss it in real life except with other leave supporting family members). I did think that anyone who ended friendships/allowed it to destroy family relationships (unless it involved racism) was utterly stupid but that's for them to live with.

I never regarded myself as a brexiteer, I'm just someone who voted leave, just like I'm not a Bill Baileyite, I just voted for him on Strictly.

Whatever the ins and outs of this, describing EU countries as bullies and abusers is childish in the extreme. It's not as if they're sending bombers over.

Bluebell there are vaccines being produced all over by various international research bodies, pharmaceutical nfirms and government's cooperating. It's actually a success story or it should be by the middle of the year.

All the rest is political puffery.

People aren't describing EU countries like that, but the EU- an important difference.

Good article from another thread.

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/29/we-had-to-go-it-alone-how-the-uk-got-ahead-in-the-covid-vaccine-race

Germany has made its own
Vaccine but has only been able to vaccinate 2% of its population as the EU took control of roll out and messed it up.

@HelloThereMeHearties

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?

It gave them the ability to fully track where the vaccines were going.

They are basically arguing that they have as much right to thr vaccines produced as we do. So any production should be distributed equally without the Uk contract being given precedence for supply, which it currently is.

So what they want to now do is check how many vaccines have been manufactured and how many we have received v how many they have got, and is Astra Zeneca doing best efforts to supply them or are they givin us preferential treatment. If so they can prevent them coming to us.

The issue is clearly we have vaccinayed over seven million people and the Eu is no where near that level anywhere and in deep shit politically.

To be fair to our government, we seemed to have cracked on and signed contracts for supply early, where the eu simply took much longer.

Invoking article 16 shows how desperate things are. To put a border in and threaten peace in Ireland is huge. Beyond huge. The eu knows exactly what that could do. So it shows how desperate they are for vaccines.

If we had still been part of Europe we would have been fucked in terms of getting vaccine supply. This is a huge advertisement for brexit and likely other countries will now bay to get out. And the eu will know it.

They now have to pay billions more because we aren’t, and now their economies continue under threat because they can’t get vaccine supply. It’s a massive negative to be part of the eu.

[quote DamnUserName21]Good article from another thread.

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/29/we-had-to-go-it-alone-how-the-uk-got-ahead-in-the-covid-vaccine-race[/quote]
Everyone should read that article

Good summary @Bluntness100, thank you.

If UK were still in the EU then Uk would be a beneficiary of these 'Trumpian' maneuvres -- and I dare say there would be widespread support in UK for them.

The UK has the worst death rate, so how the EU are okay trying to take our vaccines is beyond me.

Also, the whole reason the UK can't deliver the intended amount, is because EU manufacturing is what's holding up the process!

So... the EU don't have such a big problem, the EU is holding up manufacturing, but the EU is demanding we give them exactly what we hoped we could?

It's an unfunny joke.

From reading the article, the reason the EU are in this position is because they moved at a glacial pace.

Interesting there are no threads about this in AIBU.....

@Bluntness100 "They are basically arguing that they have as much right to thr vaccines produced as we do. So any production should be distributed equally without the Uk contract being given precedence for supply, which it currently is."

This is interesting and I had seen it elsewhere, a quote from someone in the EU saying "We reject 'first come first served' assumptions".
But if this were a far less emotive product that had been ordered. Say, batteries shoelaces. Would the customer usually get to dictate how the supply is distributed? I know if will depend on what their contracts say.

@lljkk

If UK were still in the EU then Uk would be a beneficiary of these 'Trumpian' maneuvres -- and I dare say there would be widespread support in UK for them.

These manoeuvres are occurring precisely because we left and would therefore not be occurring if we remained in, so that is a straw man argument...

@lljkk errrrrr these awful protectionist manoeuvres are happening because the EU has a neighbour that has left and are now visibly seen to be doing better. They don’t like that. If we had stayed none of this would have happened and we would be sitting begging 27 countries for vaccines. And you just know the U.K. wouldn’t be in the front of that queue don’t you?

@lljkk

If UK were still in the EU then Uk would be a beneficiary of these 'Trumpian' maneuvres -- and I dare say there would be widespread support in UK for them.

There wasn't widespread support when Germany and the EU fucked over Italy on ppe and simply slammed borders shut with no assistance at the beginning. There was horror and condemnation (and a total lack of surprise from leavers).

Some public People in UK would be gloating happy if UK were still part of an EU playing tigress to protect EU vaccine supplies against someone else's interest (like against Russia or USA or China). There would be all sorts of moral contortions to defend & justify this stance.

Just like This thread has people gloating over the opportunity to express their long-standing hate of EU. Mega-projection, opportunism to promote long-standing world views, revive the Brexit debate (zzzzz). I guess some people really miss that strife.

good summary bluntness.

@lljkk no I don’t think we would be happy. We would be sitting in the middle of the EU queue unvaccined.