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

Even more glad we're out, absolutely awful behaviour by the EU.

"the 1940s EU "
Europe was a bit busy with other things in the 1940s. And the EU wasn't founded till 1993. Thanks for the laugh, though

@samanthawashington is the Spanish prime minister calling Biden and asking the US to share their vaccines to the EU too? Is the Spanish Prime Minister sharing his vaccines with Latin America?

@Dongdingdong

Good post, *@CuriousaboutSamphire*.

Yes i agree

I also acknowledge that post 1st January there is no such thing as leavers and remainers. If you live in the uk you are now a leaver.
The term relates to someone's beliefs, not the political state of play. Within the belief system, there are now former remainers with varying degrees of acceptance ranging from Brexit refuseniks to relieved converts to Leave.

Spain and France population don't seem to want the Oxford vaccine anyway from reading comments on El Pais and Le Monde.

They have been told it's only 60% effective and doesn't work in the over 65s.

But i dont think it would destroy the EU. More bring about some of the changes that the UK has rallied for, for years. Ironically.

^^ Oh lord - purleeese!! How many more get thrown under the bus whilst it sorts itself out - endless on going problems where the citizens suffer, at what point do they think - this not working and not worth the small benefits!!

The astonishing fact about this whole debacle is not that the EU planned their vaccine supply badly. That's no surprise, and shit happens in life. The huge mistake is that once they looked at the supply and the international rollout of vaccines, they didn't take pause, think okay we have too few others will have too many, who can we work with to resolve and even things out. How can we work with our suppliers to increase production. Instead, they decided to upset the UK (who will have a surplus to share with someone - the Commonwealth being at the top of the priority list, maybe Ireland). And they chose to upset the producer of the at cost vaccine that will eventually save us all from the pandemic, even though legally they have no leg to stand on. They chose to lie about the meaning of "best efforts". How utterly stupid do you have to be to piss off all the people who you need the most, and choose to lie instead about your own incompetence, in the hope that you'll carry it off? In the post Trump world, this was their response. It beggars belief.
I have previously said that UvdL was Germany's answer to our own Failing Grayling, and that she was a back deal between Macron and Merkel (in return for Lagarde at the ECB who is a different problem also waiting to happen). The procurement programme is probably not her fault but the response to the UK and AZ is definitely all on her.

@HairyFloppins

Spain and France population don't seem to want the Oxford vaccine anyway from reading comments on El Pais and Le Monde.

They have been told it's only 60% effective and doesn't work in the over 65s.

This will all come out in the rates at which countries get on top of the pandemic. Their politicians should be encouraging uptake and it's on their heads if they allow this Trumpian misinformation to prevail.

But i dont think it would destroy the EU. More bring about some of the changes that the UK has rallied for, for years. Ironically.
It's hard to imagine how that can happen though. MEPs are irrelevant. It's the structure of the Commission that needs change. The line pushed in Europe might be that ever closer union is the answer, and the point of no return may already have been reached on that.

So what I’m getting is
EU - Your British vaccine is shit and not as good as our Pfizer one, and can’t work on over 65s

Also EU - Give us your vaccines.

Mmm hmmm

he line pushed in Europe might be that ever closer union is the answer, and the point of no return may already have been reached on that.

^^ That is always the EU line - this didn't work because we are not all aligned sufficiently/.

You can see what the eu is saying though, they are saying the contract says they need to do reasonable best efforts to get them supply and that by prioritising the Uk they are not doing reasonable best efforts.

However we can’t see what the British contract says, Ie does it guarantee supply or prioritise us.

The eu isn’t going to let this go though, they are going to fight for vaccines.

I do think thr eu is at risk, the Netherlands have already voted against it and the goverment didn’t act on it, belgium, France and Germany are also under pressure to come out. This isn’t going to make it any better if it looks like we got vaccines and the eu failure to act and sign contracts stopped them getting theirs.

This is a subject that’s hugely emotive everywhere.

@Toptotoeunicolour

I also acknowledge that post 1st January there is no such thing as leavers and remainers. If you live in the uk you are now a leaver. The term relates to someone's beliefs, not the political state of play. Within the belief system, there are now former remainers with varying degrees of acceptance ranging from Brexit refuseniks to relieved converts to Leave.

There were always a range of views within leave. From the very hard one to soft leavers. From those who supported it for black and white issues of racism to others who did vote for it on the basis of beaucracry.

One of the issues of the past 5 years has precisely been every one having different views on what leave actually meant. It changed over time and by the admission of the Leave campaign itself the strategy was to get every voter getting a unique idea of what leaving meant in their heads to broaden the electoral chances of success.

That is now resolved and is a largely closed question (which didn't necessarily represent the views of all leavers - lexiters being one of the more notable groups).

What isnt resolved is what happens next and how remainers in particular respond.

Remain was never united after the referedum. Theres never been a single set of beliefs. I certainly have different views to many which others will testify to.

I dont know why its such a surprise to see this manifesting now and people having a variety of different views.

I personally understand why the EU are doing what they are doing. Its what they should be doing to a degree (not a full on trade war but applying political pressure cos theyve stuffed up previously) but there approach needs to be measured to achieve their goal. Thats not to say i approve of the strategy.

And thats quite separate to what i think about how it affects the uk. Or what i think the uk should do. Or what i think the UK will do.

The fundamental point is that Brexit is now NOT the main political issue for the UK (it never was for the EU). Its a new era in politics shaped by politics. Old labels are irrelevant at this point.

This is why the EU is trying to flex its muscle -to stamp out dissent! Also, the German govt’s criticism of the Oxford vaccine looks bit like sour grapes.

by prioritising the Uk they are not doing reasonable best efforts
This comes down to Belgian law. England and Wales law would consider this to include only commercially feasible actions such as buying in third party assistance (see my note above) but would not consider it reasonable to break a previously existing contract, because that would be considered to create a negative consequence for the commercial interests of the supplier. The EC fundamentally believe their contract should take precedence over a UK contract, but that would be unusual in the law of England and Wales (I presume this is the jurisdiction for the UK contract). I don't know what Belgian law would say.

Same for Remain - the " white fortress" of the EU, which is why many minority communities voted leave. A huge range of reasons why people voted remain or leave.

@LouiseBelchersBunnyEars

So what I’m getting is EU - Your British vaccine is shit and not as good as our Pfizer one, and can’t work on over 65s

Also EU - Give us your vaccines.

Mmm hmmm

Balancing politics of vaccine shortage and a lack of trust in vaccines. Its not contridictory.

No politician in a country with high anti vax sentiment can fully back a vaccine on the basis of a lack of evidence in case it goes horribly wrong and it undermines trust in vaccines even further.

They want the vaccine 'cos numbers' matter and at least someone will take it and thats still one less person who needs pfizer.

When data comes in they can get more behind a vaccine.

@RedToothBrush - true. Also that's exactly the kind of "low risk" strategy that got the EU where it is right now on vaccine dose volumes and expected vaccine take-up rates.

Now the French are saying we need a shared vaccine programme. If it was the other way round it would be ya boo sucks to you Brits. You chose Brexit. Even I couldn't imagine they'd behave in such a despicable way.,

@bellinisurge

"the 1940s EU " Europe was a bit busy with other things in the 1940s. And the EU wasn't founded till 1993. Thanks for the laugh, though

Thank you for explaining my own post to me and, as they say, the joke is always the funnier for having had it explained.

@Viviennemary

Now the French are saying we need a shared vaccine programme. If it was the other way round it would be ya boo sucks to you Brits. You chose Brexit. Even I couldn't imagine they'd behave in such a despicable way.,

Where have they said that? Macron keeps saying the AZ is crap The EU haven't concluded their order with French firm valneva.

It's possible to think that the EU haven't covered themselves in glory on the vaccine front and still not think that Brexit, in general terms, is a good idea,

I voted remain and I still think Brexit is a mistake. Who knows where we would be if the EU had had the benefit of the UK's influence when establishing its vaccine strategy? Perhaps the whole of Europe would be benefitting from a better strategy. Ultimately it's in the UK's interests for its closest neighbours to also achieve good rates of vaccination, we remain exposed until they do.

It depends, as MRex said on Belgian law. From my utterly non legal perspective that would focus on how it interprets section 6... if something happens we will all agree to sit down and discuss our options, we will not throw out threats of legal action.

We know there was a similar agreement with the UK as, when the same thing happened here, there was just a deep breath and, we need to wait attitude.

That in itself undermines the EU suggestion that the UK contract was inherently different.

Using Stella's own terminology, it wouldn't be fair to penalise the UK in order to allow EU output to skip the same teething issues. And that's before you look at what the teething issues actually were (or were not if you want to continue the EU paranoia that it was all a lie in the first place).

This is all short term thinking. In a month, probably less, the UK, Canada etc will be able to quantify their excess holdings. Note I am talking about countries in the depths of winter with huge numbers in hospital. They will be over that height and will be able to divert much higher amounts to countries not quite at the same pandemic point.

The EU should be doing the same but cannot as they were unlucky, bet on the wrong vaccine horse. As did many other countries.

That's the bottom line. Differences in vaccine procurement and the Commission's heated response.

It should blow over, but the ramifications could be interesting... in an uneasy way!1

@CuriousaboutSamphire

It depends, as MRex said on Belgian law. From my utterly non legal perspective that would focus on how it interprets section 6... if something happens we will all agree to sit down and discuss our options, we will not throw out threats of legal action.

We know there was a similar agreement with the UK as, when the same thing happened here, there was just a deep breath and, we need to wait attitude.

That in itself undermines the EU suggestion that the UK contract was inherently different.

Using Stella's own terminology, it wouldn't be fair to penalise the UK in order to allow EU output to skip the same teething issues. And that's before you look at what the teething issues actually were (or were not if you want to continue the EU paranoia that it was all a lie in the first place).

This is all short term thinking. In a month, probably less, the UK, Canada etc will be able to quantify their excess holdings. Note I am talking about countries in the depths of winter with huge numbers in hospital. They will be over that height and will be able to divert much higher amounts to countries not quite at the same pandemic point.

The EU should be doing the same but cannot as they were unlucky, bet on the wrong vaccine horse. As did many other countries.

That's the bottom line. Differences in vaccine procurement and the Commission's heated response.

It should blow over, but the ramifications could be interesting... in an uneasy way!1

I wonder when next shipment phizer due thought it was mid Feb thats why mid Feb was seen as a reveiw date in uk because lockdown and restrictions within uk are partly tied to how many we immunise group 1 to 4. It seems phizer factory only had close for 1 week not a month but they will surely have a backog and lots orders for UK EU and other countries. By March EU should have more vaccines

Its February and their possible antics if blocking phizer worries me.