AZ - EU dispute 2

[marbellamarc]

Unsure if this will work!

Hand on heart would you all be happy with that? seriously? i'd bet my house again, they'd be howls of protest and demands

Very unhappy but I think the ire would be directed at the government & BoJo. Our lack of PPE wasn't blamed on other countries stopping exporting. We were slow.

i just think that europe needs a bit of help, they 've messed up but they are supposed to be our allies and friends, they'll be our neighbours long after cv is a distant memory, its in our selfish interests to assist.

I think the request for help could have been better. Do you think the EU would have been so willing to help us if roles were reversed? Their Covax pledge is lacking

To the poster saying the UK signs "give back" the 4m doses.

Where did we get to:
1.We don't know how many doses came from the EU factories to the UK, nor how many were listed in the EC contract as coming, nor if they passed quality checks. It is thought to be 4m; but no public confirmation, slow January start in the UK and the Novasep failure information may mean it was never actually 4m. EC has not said how many doses they believe went to the UK and haven't requested that those specific dose volumes be returned. (This bit could be an easy EC public opinion win, there is a reason it isn't being used.)

1. EC believes they have entitlement to UK factory orders right now (despite the clause 5.1/5.4 stating entitlement for initial doses was the EU factories only, UK was just an option to fulfil additional doses)
2. EC does not believe there was a yield issue in Walloon, search the factory. (Despite this being a third party, who might not reasonably be expected to keep quiet about Astrazeneca publicly saying it was their work that failed, if it didn't.)
3. EC wants to put export controls on all vaccine exports, not just the ones in the contract they're worried about right now and not only exports to the UK (What has this got to do with the AZ contract then?)
4. EC believes vaccines would be snuck out of the EU via the Northern Ireland border (weird, dangerous and uniquely united every edge of the RoI, NI and UK political spectrum behind a massive "Oh no you don't", they are now holding back Article 16 unless they get evidence of vaccine border crossing)
5. The contract says AZ can use Best Reasonable Efforts and submit an updated schedule. If they are late, the contract says the EC will use Best Reasonable Efforts to find another CMO to help. (EC instead assigns Pfizer doses to Sanofi Frankfurt facility).

7.The contract was signed 3 months later then that UK, only got the regulatory EMA approval on 29th January and the doses don't appear to be due until the end of Q1. (Everything with delivery dates and volumes was blacked out in the contract, so we can't assess this bit, but it doesn't actually appear to be officially late yet.)

1. EC seem to believe they should be entitled to all Pfizer EU production, EU AZ production and UK AZ production. Because it isn't a butcher's shop. (It definitely isn't a butcher's shop, nobody is sure why is relevant to contract law. Astrazeneca staying fairly quiet right now. No public statements from other pharmaceutical firms yet.)
2. German "sources", health authority and Macron still say this thing they're fighting so hard about doesn't work for the elderly. (Antibody responses similar in phase 2 trials, not enough elderly people caught covid in phase 3 trials.)

10. 4m extra doses is 0.5% of the EU population.

So, it's REALLY not about 4m doses that came to the UK in December.If the EC had publicly said "Hey, we think those 4m that went to the UK should have been left for the EU order. It's fine to help if there's enough, but our contract is so late we're down by tens of millions. UK government please support us in talks with our mutual supplier because they are pointing at your contract that we can't see." Then we would be in a different situation, wouldn't we?

EU citizens are tired of high cases, high deaths and lockdowns. They want out quickly and many hope vaccines will help (less so the French). The whole farce doesn't seem to be distracting many EU countries from thinking the EC ordered insufficient doses, too late, and ineffectively. The panicky drama is managing to get fringes of jingoistic excited chatting about theft of doses, but mostly it's just making the EC look somewhere between incompetent and unhinged.I've read more criticism of Ursula von der Leyen than anything else, here's an example: "Europe's Vaccine Disaster: Commission President Ursula von der Leyen Seeking to Duck Responsibility - DER SPIEGEL" www.spiegel.de/international/europe/europe-s-vaccine-disaster-commission-president-ursula-von-der-leyen-seeking-to-duck-responsibility-a-1197547d-6219-4438-9d69-b76e64701802-amp.

I forgot to add, we were told in early January that just under 550k AZ doses were ready to go. Not 4m + an amount from the UK factories.

It worked!! ish

I think the UK would’ve comprised, the EU never gave them a chance, they went on attack mode from day one, this is not the way to behave. The EU were shown as out of control and angry, this helps no one in discussions to compromise. How will anyone want to do business with them in the future when they have behaved so appallingly?

Thanks for starting this thread, I was so hoping someone would.

There was a lot of discussion on the prior thread about Novavax as part of the UK and possibly EU supply picture. Just for clarity, Novavax was part of Operation Warp Speed in the US and took advance payment for 100 million doses for the US. I'm sure it will also be distributed elsewhere, but it is not going exclusively to the UK.

U.S. government awards Novavax $1.6 billion for coronavirus vaccine

It looks like it will be an important part of the solution, along with the J&J vaccine.

I've been watching the news here pretty carefully for any reaction to the EU debacle from the Biden administration, and there's not a peep so far. I'm sure however that they're fully prepared to tell the EC to fuck right off if it escalates into further tantrums directed at the US.

And who ordered article 16? I bet they’re thinking oh shit this morning, what have I done.

for any reaction to the EU debacle from the Biden administration, and there's not a peep so far.

^^ Well an absolutely huge fuss was made of the border issue its only right they comment now.

@MissConductUS - Novovax have an existing facility in Czech Republic. They are setting up a new one in Teesside UK for this vaccine, people are speculating about whether the contract specifies UK doses first from the new UK facility. There was mention of a possible new site in Germany too.

It strikes me that the EU distrusts the UK massively. They think we have a grand post-Brexit plan to reposition ourselves in the world and they’re desperate to quash this. They are nervous that a successful UK post Brexit will see other countries in the bloc think breaking away is advantageous. Even worse what happens if two breakaway countries team up? Imagine if Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and the UK decided to set themselves up as a Science/pharma hub. They worked together to be a combined place of excellence when it comes to Pharma/vaccines etc. In the sane way that Germany is known for its dominance in engineering.

That could be something very worrying to the bloc. They want control of every country in Europe. They want to be steering the ship.

I find it fascinating.

@Baileysforchristmas
And who ordered article 16? I bet they’re thinking oh shit this morning, what have I done.

Not to worry. At the EC's pace, they probably won't hear anything about a disciplinary until next year at the earliest.

How long do we have to wait until our own special factory hub is sorted out!

I can distinctly remembered that Oxford was initially planning on partnering with an US company but was vetoed by Matt Hancock for his fear of Trump domineering the vaccine production right. Instead he steered the oxford group towards AZ. And the vaccine task force was lead by Kate Bingham, an eminent strategist who was reduced by some nasties as a 'Tory' s wife' and faced with multiple calls to resign. It is a surreal feeling having everything played out in the end.

I find it quite fascinating that there are so many people saying we would be behaving the same way if the situation were reversed.

It’s like they’ve forgotten the PPE debacle happened.
When we were down on supplies, because we too slow on the uptake, no one was saying the EU should share with us.
Everyone was saying it’s embarrassing at how incompetent we were in comparison.

They need to look at their selves and their own procedures.

Everyone also seems to be oh so very understanding of the EU and it’s motives, and do not extend that understanding to the U.K. government.

It all seems very odd from where I’m sitting

i think it’s actually quite the opposite. The vast majority of people who were pro EU are now looking at their actions very differently. Sometimes in a time of extreme pressure the mask slips. We now have to decide which of the masks are a true reflection of how they operate. Is it the glossy, organised outer image or the ugly, trigger article 16 one?

Like I said not a way to behave, how can you have a partnership, in trade and business when one side behaves like this?

What I want to know is what's this mythical power given to member states to check , authorise export entail?
Is it just a dramatic threat?

Who's specific job is it?
Phizer employee or is someone from the commission installed in every factory to check what goes out when and go whom?
What criteria is used to determine non authorisation of export?
Can they sweep up all the phizer and tell all the other countries they need to wait longer as the EU needs is greater.
Noticed on euro news Germany and other countries adding extra restrictions.
France nearly went into a lockdown.
France and Germany banned British going there.
Portugal is in lockdown and quite hugh rates.
Italy seems vary between regions but they having issues their government and their moderna order reduced.
Netherlands are rioting and have a caretaker government.

The EMA not exactly instilling confidences on the AZ vaccine as they say they authorise it but they need to do more tests and macron dissed it yesterday still planting seed doubt its useless for the elderly.

America said nothing yet.

It's called the Export Authorising Scheme: "Commission puts in place transparency and authorisation mechanism for exports of COVID-19 vaccines - Trade - European Commission" trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=2239.
I can't find the legal text, but that's the same name as the one used March-May 2020 for PPE, so expect it will be very similar.

Links to the PPE one: "Coronavirus: Requirement for export authorisation for personal protective equipment comes to its end - Trade - European Commission" trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=2147

@Baileysforchristmas

And who ordered article 16? I bet they’re thinking oh shit this morning, what have I done.

Would surely have to have been someone very high up in the organisation?

Thanks but what does this mean in practice.
Surely they have to publish a criteria of authorisation.
So that the vaccine company know which contracts they can fulfill and the countries who getting delayed so they can plan accordingly.
Not sure about other countries other than UK but any loosening restrictions or end of lockdown is subject to our vaccination schedule going well most vulnerable groups all immunised.
If we don't know if our promised phizer is not authorised how can we plan?
The other vaccines I don't think will be available until March we currently only have 2 AZ and phizer.

I assume Tuesday raid on AZ didn't give them any proof of AZ sent 4million to UK.

I don't know how it works. Links to the legislation at the bottom of here: trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=2123.

(Sorry, I could read it later, but no time to right now so just links.)

I’m guessing that a lot of this sabre rattling is to force the UK to do something. The suspect from our standpoint this was a contractual issue between AZ and EU. When dealing with AZ wasn’t yielding results they decided to make it a political issue in the hope they could force us to step in and have an opinion.

Yes & a distraction from their mistake.