What do EU nationals think of the vaccines mess?

[Frazzled2207]

I’m a committed remainer. But the EU really did mess up last night. More seriously they are not in a good position right now with regards vaccine supply. Lots of anti-Eu posts here right now from committed remainers like me.

Just wondering what EU citizens make of all this and is there any bad feeling towards the UK? Do you think the EU has a right to some of the UK’s vaccine supply? Are people angry at the fact that the UK was able to secure more vaccines more quickly? Or are we coming across as selfish idiots?
Generally curious and am not here to start an argument

If the bloc dissolves maybe we could go back to having a Common Market?

It's my understanding of the whole EU, Ireland, vaccine thing. Please correct me, add something if I’ve missed it but you have to use the analogy I’m using to help my simple mind-

New pizza restaurant opens-

🍕- Who wants 🍕?

🇬🇧- Yep, please, pepperoni shed loads of it!!

🍕- Ok, 🇪🇺, while I’m doing theirs, want anything?

🇪🇺- Yes let us just..... hold! What we having?

🇫🇷-Pepperoni
🇩🇪- Plain cheese
🇬🇷- Anchovies
🇮🇹- mushroom
🇮🇩- pineapple

🇫🇷🇩🇪🇬🇷🇮🇹- Who the f invited Poland? We are not having pineapple you heathens!!

🍕- Well while you decide we’ll crack on with the UK order 👍.

(Some hours later)

🇪🇺- We too shall have pepperoni!

🍕- Great just dealing with the UK start yours ASAP! All ovens fired and were cracking on.

🇪🇺- We have ordered!! You shall deliver to us NOW!

🍕- Well, you can have a few but we really do have an obligation to get the 🇬🇧 theirs.

🇪🇺- Fine, then we shall block the garden path to the 🇬🇧. No more pizza for them until we get ours!!!!

🇫🇷- Who left the side gate open?! 🇮🇪 ffs why haven’t you shut your gate?

🇮🇪- You said we could keep it open so we can still go and see next door and take them stuff. You said it was a good thing.

🇪🇺- We said that to try and strong arm the UK into not leaving!!

🇮🇪- But........

🇪🇺- (Mutes 🇮🇪) Its ok we have the key just lock it anyway.

Sinn Fein- I focken dare yous to touch our gate!!!!

🇪🇺- We’ve talked to the 🇬🇧 and decided NOT to lock the gate. We shall wait for our 🍕 and see if there is a calm rational way to speed up production.

They wanted our vaccines that are made here...

They wanted our vaccines made in the UK..

They are not 'our' vaccines. This isn't a football team ffs.

The vaccines made by Astrazenica are manufactured at sites in Europe and at sites in the UK (and also India). People or countries that purchase those vaccines are the 'owners' of the vaccines WHEREVER they happen to be manufactured. Not 'us' or 'them' or all that jingoistic shit. They are not YOUR vaccines just because they are made in the UK.

Pfizer vaccines, some of which are indeed YOUR vaccines because the UK purchased them for YOU, are made in Europe, for example.

The argument is between the EU who paid for the development, production and purchase of the AstraZenica vaccine, and AstraZenica who have not delivered what was ordered and paid for.

@ohfourfoxache

The EU’s poor management has given leavers in EU member states a huge gift...WTF is going to happen if this leads to the entire bloc dissolving??

It won't, people will forget about it as soon as they and their loved ones get vaccinated.

The U.K. has played a blinder on the vaccines. It is indeed the only thing Boris has got right.

It's not just that we signed the contracts sooner
-We hosted a number of the major trials with our world class universities
-We heavily invested in production and distribution and that's why our factory works and theirs doesn't
-We had a speeded up regulatory process.

I know a lot of people involved with the AZ trial and production and the effort that's gone into this and the support from the U.K. government has actually been amazing.

Let's not forget also that AZ are doing this at cost price and not profiteering out of the pandemic

It isn't their fault that the EU production faculty isn't up to speed and far less their fault that the regulator didn't even approve it until yesterday. They made best efforts to fulfill on their EU contract and it hasn't worked out. They are fulfilling the U.K. contract arguable because they had better support and a head start to do so. The EU cannot force AZ to breech their U.K. contract to fulfill the EU one. They are 2 separate issues.

AstraZenica who have not delivered what was ordered and paid for

They would be hard pushed to have done so given the EMA only approved the vaccine yesterday!

I know there have been issues with the vaccine, but from my corner of Europe, I hadn't heard this story at all. I do follow the news but I hadn't looked at UK news. This wasn't mentioned on our news. I've read up about it now, to be honest, I'm not surprised it hasn't been mentioned, we have other things to worry about here.

(and yes, I know they said there would be a delay. They didn't say they wouldn't be delivering, they said it would take longer, and all hell was let loose)

@SkiingIsHeaven I love that

It's barely been on the news over here in the Netherlands. Last I read it said the EU reversed the decision to block exports.

The big news item of yesterday... The Johnson & Johnson vaccine. If it gets approved the Netherlands has ordered more than enough doses to vaccinate all adults this year. They believe vaccinating with this vaccine can start in April.

Perhaps if the EU had pulled its finger out earlier this wouldn’t have happened. Although I can’t understand how earlier ordering could have significantly increased production now.

Because you need to pay upfront to set up your production and allow time for the problems that will inevitably occur. This is from The Guardian: "...the EU had failed to invest as it should have in scaling-up production plants. The EU had spent just €1.78bn in “risk money”, cash handed to pharmaceutical companies without any guarantee of a return, compared to €1.9bn by the UK and €9bn by the US, he said. There were consequences."
When you think that our population is about 67 million while the population of the EU is nearly 450 million, you can see how much money we spent per person to get our supplies set up. And hopefully that also shows how even if the EU raided our entire supply, it wouldn't solve their problem.

@ohfourfoxache

The EU’s poor management has given leavers in EU member states a huge gift...WTF is going to happen if this leads to the entire bloc dissolving??

It won't though. I don't know why this keeps coming up on mumsnet like it is something likely to happen. Do people in the UK know something people in the EU don't because it is only people in the UK I see predicting the end of the EU.

Half of my family is from an EU country, they didn't mind the UK leaving the EU because they didn't view the country as being in the EU anyway. No Euro, different rules, not interests, different cultures.

Their country hasn't been able to get PPE effectively, and vaccines have been a nightmare. They have the mismanagement by the EU as very poor, and are sick of Germany constantly forcing themselves to be in charge and then failing to deliver. One of the AZ factories is in their country; and they don't believe it's acceptable to seize vaccines from others. This is partly as they don't have a military, and believe given the EU broke the Brexit deal (international emergencies are quite well defined, and being late to the game isn't one of them) and now is seizing vaccines sets a precedent for increasing militarisation of this. They believe that while the UK will probably simply just downgrade relations, they would be in trouble if the UK government decided to simply seize vaccines back using force because it's 'an emergency'.

This is especially as the EU told them over and over that the UK wouldn't honour deals, would just break the rules, couldn't be trusted; and then did so themselves almost immediately. They find this quite embarrassing, and now question what else wasn't true. While they like the EU's open borders for travel, they worry about increasing right wing extremism if the EU continues to overpower states. They want more autonomy; and the ability to form security partnerships with the UK.

@OuiOuiKitty quite. I am not sure where all this is coming from. The Netherlands has been slow with vaccine rollout but that is an internal mess, nothing to do with the EU.

@CuteOrangeElephant

It's barely been on the news over here in the Netherlands. Last I read it said the EU reversed the decision to block exports.

The big news item of yesterday... The Johnson & Johnson vaccine. If it gets approved the Netherlands has ordered more than enough doses to vaccinate all adults this year. They believe vaccinating with this vaccine can start in April.

I saw this here too yesterday(another EU country). There really is the UK vs the EU rhetoric happening here at all. I was surprised to see so many threads on it here yesterday when on forums in my country it barely features. It's almost as if most of the people in the EU have moved on and don't really think too deep about the UK anymore

That was meant to say there isn't the UK vs EU rhetoric not there is.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine. If it gets approved the Netherlands has ordered more than enough doses to vaccinate all adults this year.

Has The Netherlands ordered this outside the EU procurement scheme?

I live in Germany and got citizenship once a few months after the Brexit vote (applied the week it happened). I've been vaccinated (Pfizer) due to my job - second dose appointment on Thursday, exactly 21 days after the first.

Nobody I know is interested in what's going on in or with the UK any more, and all of my colleagues and our residents who wish to be vaccinated (large supported living community) have been vaccinated or will be within the next month.

My main response is suprise that MN posters seem to think there's a personal agenda. The EU and the UK don't have emotional responses to things because they're a group of countries and a country, families living in next door houses. The "neighbours" metaphore seems to have made anthropomorphism the norm, leading to very strange interpretation of the actions of beurocracies on both sides.

@OuiOuiKitty I hope it doesn’t lead to a dissolution, but there is a tendency I think in the UK press to suggest that, for example, Italy is increasingly dissatisfied with the EU and could look towards leaving. Unfortunately it’s difficult to know what’s true and what isn’t - hence my post!

not families living in next door houses that should say!

@ScribblingPixie

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine. If it gets approved the Netherlands has ordered more than enough doses to vaccinate all adults this year.

Has The Netherlands ordered this outside the EU procurement scheme?

I am not sure. This is what it said on the news. Either way it really doesn't matter to me.

@Theunamedcat
No they don't its contract law it depends on the contract there is no theory that starts "its a global pandemic but we get it first"

Sorry, but no, this law doesn’t depend on the contract, it is part of the TEU articles 14 & 15, put into law as articles 28 and 29 of the CFSP.

"And the UK want our vaccines made here in the EU. It works both ways. The UK don't want any UK made AstraZenica vaccines leaving the UK until UK citizens are vaccinated. But the UK is also outraged at the EU bringing in legislation to stop EU made Pfizer vaccines (and others) leaving the EU until EU citizens are vaccinated."

I think you will find most of the outrage was coming from the EU who indeed made themselves look ridiculous and completely unreasonable in what they did regarding Ireland.
The UK hit the ground running in regards to vaccine manufacturing and procuring early last year, any potential problems regarding manufacturing were ironed out last year.
The EU were way too late to act.

We invested money earlier on not knowing it would pay off, more than the EU infact.
We had the right skilled people doing what they needed to do, unfortunately the EU don't.

@noblegiraffe

Just reminding you it could exercise it’s legal right to direct it’s own manufacturers to prioritise EU contracts

Why are you referring to UK-based manufacturers as EU manufacturers?

Because the issue is regarding AZ vaccines produced by EU manufacturers in EU countries. Not the ones produced in U.K.

They are indeed 'the company's' vaccines and the company can choose how to distribute them. They can decide to fulfill the U.K. contract and not the EU one there is no particular obligation to be fair. In order to fulfil the EU order they'd need to use U.K. production facilities and breach the U.K. contract and they don't choose to.

Why fail to fulfil 2 contracts instead of one? Currently say it's 3UK to 1EU. The EU want it evened up to 2 each so we both lose out rather than they bear all the shortfall but that's not how it works.

AZ published the contract and it as us they are required to use best efforts to supply that number. They tried and their best efforts on the EU production facility were not enough. The question is whether they are required to use their U.K. facility to supply vaccines to the EU and in doing so to breach their U.K. contract and most lawyers think they are not.